Acta Veterinaria et Zootechnica Sinica ›› 2021, Vol. 52 ›› Issue (4): 909-919.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2021.04.007

• REVIEW • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Ferritin Nanocarrier and Its Application Potential in the Field of Biomedicine

SU Kai1, FAN Tingli2, SONG Qinye1*   

  1. 1. College of Veterinary Medicine, Hebei Veterinary Biotechnology Innovation Center, Hebei Agricultural University, Baoding 071000, China;
    2. Department of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary, Cangzhou Vocational and Technical College, Cangzhou 061001, China
  • Received:2020-09-27 Online:2021-04-23 Published:2021-04-25

Abstract: Ferritin, an iron storage protein widely found in almost all living organisms, has some main functions of storing and transforming iron, maintaining the balance of cellular iron metabolism and protecting cells from oxidative damage. Ferritin can self-assemble into a spherical nanocage that carries and delivers various metals and a broad range of therapeutic and image agents. Moreover, ferritin has the characteristics of easy modification, good biocompatibility and targeting, and these make ferritin become a non-viral natural nanomaterial with great application potential in the field of biomedicine. This review highlights the structures and biological functions, the current work on ferritin as well as the application prospects based on ferritin nanocarrier platform in the field of disease detection, nanocarrier vaccine and drug carrier in order to provide reference for related researches.

Key words: ferritin, nanocarrier, structure and function, biomedicine, application potential

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