Virus-like particles as drug delivery vectors
Abstract
Virus-like particles (VLPs) assemble spontaneously during the viral cycle or in heterologous systems during expression of viral structural protein. Depending on the complexity of the VLPs, they can be obtained by expression in prokaryotic or eukaryotic expression system from the suitable recombinant vectors, or formed in cell-free conditions. Moreover, they can be built from proteins of a single virus, or can present the proteins or peptides derived from a virus or cell on a platform derived from any other single virus, thus forming chimeric VLPs. VLPs are best known for their immunogenic properties, but the versatility of VLPs allows a wide variety of applications. They are lately in the centre of investigations in vaccinology, drug delivery and gene therapy. This review focuses on utilization of VLPs for drug delivery.Acta Biochimica Polonica is an OpenAccess quarterly and publishes four issues a year. All contents are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. Everybody may use the content following terms: Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
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