Functional ferritin nanoparticles for biomedical applications

Abstract

Ferritin, a major iron storage protein with a hollow interior cavity, has been reported recently to play many important roles in biomedical and bioengineering applications. Owing to the unique architecture and surface properties, ferritin nanoparticles offer favorable characteristics and can be either genetically or chemically modified to impart functionalities to their surfaces, and therapeutics or probes can be encapsulated in their interiors by controlled and reversible assembly/disassembly. There has been an outburst of interest regarding the employment of functional ferritin nanoparticles in nanomedicine. This review will highlight the recent advances in ferritin nanoparticles for drug delivery, bioassay, and molecular imaging with a particular focus on their biomedical applications.

Tie2-mediated vascular remodeling by ferritin-based protein C nanoparticles confers antitumor and anti-metastatic activities

“…They can be chemically modified to impart functionalities within their interior cavities or on their surfaces because of their unique architecture [17]. Unlike most other proteins, ferritin possesses unique properties, such as high solubility, stability, abundance in blood, and low toxicity, which motivates studies on its use as an ideal nanoplatform with many applications including disease therapy and drug delivery [18]. Here, we used ferritin as a template to encapsulate and deliver PCNs as a potential cancer therapeutic.…”

“…Since the activation of PAR-1 signaling by TRAP mimics thrombin activity [15] and results in a cytoprotective response when EPCR is occupied with APCs [15,16], both the PC-Gla and TRAP peptides were attached to the surface of ferritin nanoparticles [11]. Ferritin nanoparticles are useful biocompatible, biodegradable, and nontoxic platforms compared with synthetic polymers [17], and ferritin-binding sites and ferritin internalization have been identified in some tumor cells [18]. Therefore, we used small ferritin as a basic template to create nanoparticles [11].…”

Nano-Medicine for Thrombosis: A Precise Diagnosis and Treatment Strategy

“…Each subunit could be engineered for modification on the C-terminal or N-terminal [100]. Ferritin can be applied for drug loading by disassembly and reassembly procedures through changes of pH [101][102][103]. In 2018, Seo et al [104] engineered a subunit of short ferritin with blood-clot-targeting peptides (CLT) on its N-terminal and the thrombolytic microplasmin (μPg) on its C-terminal.…”

Advantages and Prospects of Tag/Catcher Mediated Antigen Display on Capsid-Like Particle-Based Vaccines

“…However, it remains to be clarified whether variation in size within this "optimal" range, as well as the resultant valency, will affect the immune response. Thus, it is unknown if the particulate size/valency differences between e.g., HPV CLPs (55 nm particle of 360 subunits), bacteriophage CLPs such as AP205 and Qβ (30 nm particles of 180 subunits), and smaller nanoparticles such as ferritin (12 nm) [110] are significant.…”