[Application potentials and research progress of nanoparticle technologies in immune therapies]

Nanoparticles have attracted intense attention and interests in the fields of science and medical industry in recent years due to their unique chemical and physical properties that may provide new solutions to the diagnoses and therapies of some intractable diseases. It has been recognized that the nanoparticles' features including small dimensions, modifiability, diversification, and so on would play revolutionary roles in early detection and diagnosis of diseases, in tumor-specific killing, pathogen ridding and gene restoring, and would provide some new approaches in molecular imaging, targeting delivery of gene or drugs, immune regulating, etc. This review is focusing on the study progress of nanoparticle technologies in immune regulating, anti-tumor immune therapies, anti-tumor targeting therapies and new vaccine development. Also the possible mechanisms by which nanoparticles enter into cells to participate in immune therapies are discussed on the basis of references.