Targeting of therapeutic agents to their specific site of action not only increases the treatment
efficacy, but also reduces systemic toxicity. Therefore, various drug delivery systems (DDSs)
have been developed to achieve this target. However, most of those DDSs have several issues regarding
biocompatibility and environmental hazard. In contrast to the synthetic DDSs, exosome-based
natural carriers are biocompatible, biodegradable and safe for the environment. Since exosomes play a
role in intercellular communication, they have been widely utilized as carriers for different therapeutic
agents. This article was aimed to provide an overview of exosomes as an environment-friendly DDS
in terms of engineering, isolation, characterization, application and limitation.
Bacterial ghosts (BGs) are empty cell envelopes of nonliving evacuated bacterial cells. They are free from their cytoplasmic contents; however, they sustain their cellular 3D morphology and antigenic structures, counting on bioadhesive properties. Lately, they have been tested as an advanced drug delivery system (DDS) for different materials like DNA, peptides, or drugs, either single components or combinations. Different studies have revealed that, BG DDS were paid the greatest attention in recent years. The current review explores the impact of BGs on the field of drug delivery and drug targeting. BGs have a varied area of applications, including vaccine and tumor therapy. Moreover, the use of BGs, their synthesis, their uniqueness as a delivery system and application principles in cancer are discussed. Furthermore, the safety issues of BGs and stability aspects of using ghost bacteria as delivery systems are discussed. Future perspective efforts that must be followed for this important system to continue to grow are important and promising.
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