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.

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用于生物医学应用的功能性铁蛋白纳米颗粒。

铁蛋白是具有中空内部空腔的主要铁存储蛋白，最近已报道在生物医学和生物工程应用中起许多重要作用。由于独特的结构和表面特性，铁蛋白纳米颗粒具有良好的特性，可以进行遗传或化学修饰以赋予其表面功能，并且可以通过可控和可逆的组装/拆卸将治疗剂或探针封装在其内部。关于在纳米药物中使用功能性铁蛋白纳米颗粒的兴趣已经引起人们的关注。这篇综述将重点介绍铁蛋白纳米颗粒在药物输送，生物测定和分子成像方面的最新进展，特别关注其生物医学应用。