The search for ideal nanocarrier, which could be rapidly translated to clinical practice, isstill ongoing over the past few decades. However, many reviews are focused onimportant properties of ideal nanocarrier, including long circulation, high internalization efficiency ofadrug, surface charge of nanocarrier or the ability to encapsulate high amount of a drug. Indeed, theability to encapsulate wide variety of drugs, noimmunogenicity, biodegradability ornanocarrier monodispersity are very important aspects, therefore they are discussed in this review. The use of nanocarrier formulations able to innately form self-assembly cages ofuniform size and shape, employing protein-based structures naturally present inhuman body, seems to be very promising. Typical protein nanocarrier disposing all the above mentioned characteristics is represented by ferritin (FRT). Hence, the presented review provides detailed characterization of FRT structure, including its disassembly and reassembly properties, which are crucial for encapsulation ofdrugs, together with possibilities of active targeting, exploiting both the innate affinities of FRT nanocages towards selected receptors and the plethora of surface functional groups that can be used to attach a variety of targeting ligands. Finally, we discuss theopportunities of cutting-edge approaches to FRT-based nanotherapy and the challenges that must be overcome or avoided.

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Mendel University in Brno Zemedelska 1 CZ 613 00 Brno Czech Republic; Central European Institute of Technology Brno University of Technology Technicka 3058 10 CZ 616 00 Brno Czech Republic

Department of Chemistry Faculty of Science University of Hradec Kralove Rokitanskeho 62 CZ 500 03 Hradec Kralove Czech Republic

References provided by Crossref.org

Nanoformulation of the Broad-Spectrum Hydrophobic Antiviral Vacuolar ATPase Inhibitor Diphyllin in Human Recombinant H-ferritin

Strategies for enhanced bioavailability of oxime reactivators in the central nervous system

Passive Diffusion vs Active pH-Dependent Encapsulation of Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors Vandetanib and Lenvatinib into Folate-Targeted Ferritin Delivery System