Introduction: Nowadays, vaccination is one of the most important methods for prevention and protection against infectious diseases and malignancies. Since the purpose of vaccination is strong and long term induction of immune response against pathogen, the usage of adjuvants that can boost the immune responses seems necessary.

Methods and Materials: This paper is a review article obtained by searching in related articles in reliable sites and books in this regard.

Results: In twentieth century, many immune system adjuvants have been discovered and largely used as an immune response booster to protect against diseases. Today, different types of adjuvants are provided with different characteristics for specific purposes. In recent years, extensive researches have been performed to provide and develop a variety of adjuvants with better quality and effectiveness.

Discussion and Conclusion: Few adjuvants have been licensed for using in human vaccines and the other adjuvants are evaluating in various stages of clinical trials or laboratory investigations. Given that the adjuvants are important part of vaccine development, we discuss the different type of them and their application in this review.