A critical review of ferritin as a drug nanocarrier: Structure, properties, comparative advantages and challenges

Ferritin stores and releases iron ions in mammals. It is globally important as a drug nanocarrier. This is because of its unique hollow-spherical structure, desirable stability and biological properties. Novel drug-loading approaches plus various functionalization approaches have been developed to improve ferritin in response to differing demands in disease treatments. Here, we critically review ferritin drug delivery and evaluate its diverse drug-loading and functionalization approaches, we: (1) Introduce basic structural and property information related to ferritin as a drug nanocarrier; (2) Contrast in detail the different means to load drugs and the selection of drug loading means; (3) Discuss multiple ferritin functionalization approaches, together with related advantages and potential risks; and, (4) Compare ferritin with alternative, commonly-used drug nanocarriers. We conclude that despite that no drugs based on ferritin are commercially available, the market potential for it is significant, and evaluate future research directions. Findings from this work will be of immediate benefit and interest to a wide range of researchers and manufacturers for drug delivery using ferritin.