In this sense, this review focuses on presenting the current understanding on the most promising therapeutic biological nanoparticles and the chromatographic isolation approaches employed in their recovery, providing at the same time recent findings and a general overview of the aspects that might impact the outcome of chromatographic techniques for this application. Moreover, even when standardized chromatographic purification protocols are still in development, great achievements have been made using size exclusion, ionic exchange, hydrophobic interaction, and affinity protocols, mostly because of the correct harnessing of the nanovesicle membrane properties. Under these circumstances, chromatographic procedures represent an attractive and favorable alternative to overcome their downstream processing. However, some of the biggest challenges towards their clinical implementation are poorly standardized processing operations due to their inherent heterogeneity and expensive, long‐lasting, and difficult to scale isolation procedures that can also affect the stability of the particles. In this context, the recent use of natural vesicle‐like nanoparticles such as extracellular vesicles (i.e., exosomes, microvesicles and apoptotic bodies), and virus‐like particles is rendering encouraging results mostly because these delivery systems present cargo versatility, favorable body circulating advantages, biocompatibility, immunogenicity, and the capacity to be modified superficially to increase their affinity to a certain target or to control their entrance to the cell.
Nanotechnology is one of the most promising technologies of the 21st century and it is now presenting an enormous impact in target drug delivery. Thus, VLP vaccines may serve as an effective alternative to conventional vaccine strategies in combating emerging infectious diseases. Finally, the potential of VLP-based vaccine as viable and efficient immunizing agents to induce immunity against virulent infectious agents, including, SARS-CoV-2 and protein nanoparticle-based vaccines has been elaborated. This review offers insight into the recent VLP-based vaccines development, with an emphasis on their characteristics, expression systems, and potential applicability as ideal candidates to combat emerging virulent pathogens. However, some production and fabrication challenges must be addressed before VLP-based approaches can be widely used in therapeutics. Because of their desired characteristics in terms of efficacy, safety, and diversity, VLP-based approaches might become more recurrent in the years to come. With the recent advancements in biomedical engineering technologies, commercially available VLP-based vaccines are being extensively used to combat infectious diseases, whereas many more are in different stages of development in clinical studies.
Virus-like particles (VLPs) are nanostructures that possess diverse applications in therapeutics, immunization, and diagnostics.
This chapter introduces the concept of immunity, explaining how vaccines can induce immune responses that protect against infectious organisms. That’s where vaccination, the most widely practiced form of immunotherapy, comes into play: it is considered one of the greatest triumphs of modern medicine. However, the immune system alone is not always able to protect against invading pathogens. When these barriers are breached and pathogens gain entry into the body, the innate and adaptive immune systems provide robust, protective immune responses. The first line of defense against foreign invasion consists of physical and chemical barriers. A wide variety of cellular and secreted components are required for effective immunoprotection, due to the huge variety of pathogens. However, healthy individuals succumb to infection only occasionally, because disease-causing organisms (pathogens) are detected and destroyed before an infection can establish. Millions of microorganisms are encountered daily, many of which can cause disease.