Viral nanoparticles (VNPs) comprise a variety of mammalian viruses, plant viruses, and bacteriophages, that have been adopted as building blocks and supra-molecular templates in nanotechnology. VNPs demonstrate the dynamic, monodisperse, polyvalent, and symmetrical architectures which represent examples of such biological templates. These programmable scaffolds have been exploited for genetic and chemical manipulation for displaying of targeted moieties together with encapsulation of various payloads for diagnosis or therapeutic intervention. The drug delivery system based on VNPs offer diverse advantages over synthetic nanoparticles, including biocompatibility, biodegradability, water solubility, and high uptake capability. Here we summarize the recent progress of VNPs especially as targeted anticancer vehicles from the encapsulation and surface modification mechanisms, involved viruses and VNPs, to their application potentials.

病毒纳米粒子 (VNP) 包括多种哺乳动物病毒、植物病毒和噬菌体，它们已被用作纳米技术中的构建块和超分子模板。VNP 展示了代表此类生物模板示例的动态、单分散、多价和对称架构。这些可编程支架已被用于遗传和化学操作，用于展示靶向部分以及封装各种有效载荷以进行诊断或治疗干预。基于 VNPs 的药物递送系统与合成纳米颗粒相比具有多种优势，包括生物相容性、生物降解性、水溶性和高吸收能力。