A critical review of ferritin as a drug nanocarrier: Structure, properties, comparative advantages and challenges--颗粒学报PARTICUOLOGY

Yin, S., Davey, K., Dai, S., Liu, Y., & Bi, J. (2022). A critical review of ferritin as a drug nanocarrier: Structure, properties, comparative advantages and challenges. Particuology, 64, 65-84. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.partic.2021.04.020

A critical review of ferritin as a drug nanocarrier: Structure, properties, comparative advantages and challenges

Shuang Yin ^a, Kenneth Davey ^a, Sheng Dai ^b, Yongdong Liu ^c *, Jingxiu Bi ^a *

a School of Chemical Engineering & Advanced Materials, Faculty of Engineering, Computer and Mathematical Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia
b Department of Chemical Engineering, Brunel University London, Uxbridge UB8 3PH, United Kingdom
c State Key Laboratory of Biochemistry Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

10.1016/j.partic.2021.04.020

Volume 64, May 2022, Pages 65-84

Received 31 March 2021, Revised 25 April 2021, Accepted 29 April 2021, Available online 28 May 2021, Version of Record 17 December 2021.

E-mail: ydliu@ipe.ac.cn; jingxiu.bi@adelaide.edu.au

Highlights

• Structure and properties afford solid foundation for ferritin as a drug nanocarrier.

• Drug loading approaches are diverse and applicable to different types of drugs.

• Functionalization of ferritin is by chemical conjugation, gene technology, hybridization.

• Drug loading performance and administration routes need improvement.

Abstract

Ferritin stores and releases iron ions in mammals. It is globally important as a drug nanocarrier. This is because of its unique hollow-spherical structure, desirable stability and biological properties. Novel drug-loading approaches plus various functionalization approaches have been developed to improve ferritin in response to differing demands in disease treatments. Here, we critically review ferritin drug delivery and evaluate its diverse drug-loading and functionalization approaches, we: (1) Introduce basic structural and property information related to ferritin as a drug nanocarrier; (2) Contrast in detail the different means to load drugs and the selection of drug loading means; (3) Discuss multiple ferritin functionalization approaches, together with related advantages and potential risks; and, (4) Compare ferritin with alternative, commonly-used drug nanocarriers. We conclude that despite that no drugs based on ferritin are commercially available, the market potential for it is significant, and evaluate future research directions. Findings from this work will be of immediate benefit and interest to a wide range of researchers and manufacturers for drug delivery using ferritin.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Ferritin; Drug delivery; Drug nanocarrier; Protein functionalization

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