Antitumor applications of polyphenol-conjugated turnip mosaic virus-derived nanoparticles.

Cancer is the second leading cause of death worldwide, just behind cardiovascular disease. It accounts for nearly 10 million deaths annually, and new strategies to improve early detection and drug delivery are urgently needed. Nanoparticles are small structures within the nanometer range (1 billionth of a meter) that can be used to deliver either an imaging probe (tracer) to allow the detection of a tumor or drugs to kill tumor cells. There are many types of nanoparticles; those based on plant viruses are especially appealing for biomedical purposes because they are biodegradable and noninfectious to humans. Also, their physicochemical properties, such as symmetry, uniformity and loading capacity, make them excellent nanocarriers. We report here for the first time the ability of nanoparticles derived from the turnip mosaic virus (TuMV), a well-known virus naturally infecting cruciferous plants (e.g., broccoli, turnip, radish, cabbage) but not humans, to deliver a fluorescent imaging probe that allows tumor detection in vivo. Moreover, TuMV nanoparticles were used to deliver a natural chemotherapeutic agent of plant origin to different types of tumor cells (lung, colorectal, breast, and head and neck), showing increased antiproliferative capacity compared to the nonvehiculized drug.