Biocompatible viruses for nanoparticle and targeted drug delivery.

Viruses are essentially considered as organic nanoparticles (ranging from 20 - 300nm) where its true power originates from their unique quality of being a nanocomposite. Nanoparticles are particles with sizes ranging from 1 to 100 nanometers that exhibit properties not observed in bulk samples of the same substance. They usually bring to mind about ruinous disease, but there have been many advances made in the field of viral nanotechnology in recent years where the nonpathogenic virus based nonmaterial have been utilized as 3D-Scaffold materials for diagnostic and drug delivery systems. These nanomaterials are synthesized by different methods based on the type and nature of nanoparticles. In broad sense we have chemical (including top down and bottom-up approach) and biological methods (comprising of plant extracts, yeast, bacterial, virus). Among the two, biological methods using plant virus as a source is preferably exploited for synthesis of nanoparticles. Many plant viruses are suitable for nanotechnology studies because of their relative simplicity, lack of membranes, ease of purification, and presence of simple one or two protein capsid assemblies with well-defined structural characteristics. Compared to synthetically engineered materials, plant viruses are ecofriendly, nontoxic, and have a highly accurate spatial arrangement of their subunits to impart a wide range of forms and sizes enabling simple and repeatable alteration. Virus has special feature of being programmable at structural and functional level due to the presence of protein container or composite nanoparticles on their surface that offer vast degrees of freedom to design and modulate the conventional symmetries and surface properties. As a result of directed evolution to the symmetry, surface carriers work as nanocages for entrapment of substance or drug in field of nanomedicine for targeted drug delivery. Here in this review, we will discuss about the spectrum of viruses used presently for producing virus-based nanoparticles and methods adopted for engineering nanoparticles and their application in the field of nanomedicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]