Design and Update of Multifunctional Polypeptides and Their Applications for the Prevention of Viral Infections and Cancer Immunotherapies

Polypeptides with repeated amino acid residues are a typical kind of biocompatible polymers and tremendous efforts have been made to synthesize them for diversified medical applications. With the deep integration of biomedicine and polypeptides, we can foresee the progresses in antiviral infections and cancer immunotherapies. Those clinical demands encourage us to discuss the functions-targeted polypeptides in biomedicine and the foreseeable and appearing roles as RNA delivery carriers, broad-spectrum antiviral agents, and nanovaccines. The functions of polypeptides are basically determined by the architectures, sequences and physicochemical properties while thoughtful understanding on rational design and structure-property relationship will move forward the delivery systems and innovative therapies on viral infections and cancers. This review is intended to help chemists to know which kinds of polypeptides are really wanted in the clinic and inform the state-of-art of polypeptides. This review will focus on the very recent synthetic methods, the modulation of architectures and physicochemical properties, the clinically-targeted applications in antiviral infections and cancer immunotherapies, and the guiding perspectives on developing multifunctional polypeptides.