Fig. 27

The formation of biological nanovectors, which can be derived from either prokaryotic (bacterial minicells), eukaryotic (extracellular vesicles), or viral sources (oncolytic viruses and virus-like particles). Bacterial minicells are achromosomal vesicles that can be generated by deleting the Min operon through genetic engineering in Gram-positive or Gram-negative bacteria. On the other hand, extracellular vesicles are produced by eukaryotic cells through the outward budding of the plasma membrane (microvesicles) or the inward budding and exocytosis (exosomes). With regard to viruses, live-attenuated oncolytic viruses contain a complete genome that enables them to replicate specifically in transformed cells, while virus-like particles consist only of structural proteins and are not capable of replication. Reprint from [131] with a permission from Springer Nature