**1. Introduction**

Vaccines are among humanity's most significant achievements. By the end of the 20th century, our efforts to prevent infectious diseases through vaccination and public sanitation were so successful that life expectancies had increased by approximately 30 years. Historically, vaccines have been used primarily as measures to prevent infectious diseases, but that focus has begun to shift as new strategies emerged on their possible use as treatments for certain chronic infectious diseases and cancer. The challenge is to find technical approaches that maximize immunogenicity without compromising safety, tolerability, and efficacy. Virus-like particles (VLP) are an attractive option.

Over the last three decades, genetically or chemically modified VLP have been used to present different classes of epitopes on their surface for diverse applications. Their ability to induce humoral and cellular response has been confirmed by many preclinical and clinical studies [1] and has offered a substantial advancement in the vaccine field. VLP vaccines are used to induce immune response against several diseases in animals [2] and humans. Some examples of treatment are osteoporosis [3], chronic pain [4], type 2 diabetes [5], and tauopathy [6]. Further, other studies have addressed the possibility of using VLP to stimulate the immune response against cancer antigens.

Here, we describe the main features of VLP as a vaccination strategy and their interaction with the immune system before focusing on VLP as cancer vaccines.
