Progress and potential of ferritin nanocages for cancer drug delivery.

[INTRODUCTION] Once regarded merely as an iron-storage protein, ferritin is now recognized as a dynamic nanoplatform with significant applications in nanomedicine. By leveraging its intrinsic tropism for tumor cells together with its hollow cage structure, ferritin can be loaded with a variety of anticancer drugs.

[AREAS COVERED] Here, we provide a comprehensive overview of the advancements made in the use of heavy-chain ferritin (HFn)-based nanoparticles in oncology, with a specific focus on chemotherapy, phototherapy and imaging applications, while also broadening to include emerging developments in immunotherapy, in order to summarize the current state of the art. We identified relevant literature through PubMed and Scopus, focusing on studies published over the past five years. Our purpose goes beyond a basic description of applications, providing a critical discussion of their limitations within the oncology landscape and highlighting the current gap between research and clinical practice.

[EXPERT OPINION] While HFn nanocages show strong promise in vaccine development, their application in cancer treatment faces significant translational challenges. These include limited human data, variability in receptor expression, rapid clearance, and the need for more representative models and scalable manufacturing, though certain untargeted HFn-based systems as Gd-HFn and Dox-HFn appear closer to clinical readiness.