Drug Delivery Vehicles Based on Albumin–Polymer Conjugates

Abstract

Albumin has been a popular building block to create nanoparticles for drug delivery purposes. The performance of albumin as a drug carrier can be enhanced by combining protein with polymers, which allows the design of carriers to encompass a broader spectrum of drugs while features unique to synthetic polymers such as stimuli-responsiveness are introduced. Nanoparticles based on polymer-albumin hybrids can be divided into two classes: one that carries album as a bioactive surface coating and the other that uses albumin as biocompatible, although nonbioactive, building block. Nanoparticles with bioactive albumin surface coating can either be prepared by self-assembly of albumin-polymer conjugates or by postcoating of existing nanoparticles with albumin. Albumin has also been used as building block, either in its native or denatured form. Existing albumin nanoparticles are coated with polymers, which can influence the degradation of albumin or impact on the drug release. Finally, an alternative way of using albumin by denaturing the protein to generate a highly functional chain, which can be modified with polymer, has been presented. These albumin nanoparticles are designed to be extremely versatile so that they can deliver a wide variety of drugs, including traditional hydrophobic drugs, metal-based drugs and even therapeutic proteins and siRNA.

Strategies for Preparing Albumin-based Nanoparticles for Multifunctional Bioimaging and Drug Delivery

“…However, different drugs are compatible with different materials. Albumin can be loaded with limited drugs 236 , 237 . To utilize the complementary advantages of both albumin and other materials, albumin-polymer conjugates have intensely been studied for biomedical application during the past years 238 - 241 .…”

Multicellular Tumor Spheroids (MCTS) as a 3D In Vitro Evaluation Tool of Nanoparticles

“…Thanks to the success of Abraxane, a nanoformulation based on albumin approved for the treatment of cancer, nanoparticles based on proteins gather increasing interest. [76] The attractive properties of these particles include the well-defined structure of the building block, the biocompatibility, and the bioactivity. Although particles based on albumin are probably the most prominent in literature, others such as whey NPs, [77] have been described.…”

Coating Matters: Review on Colloidal Stability of Nanoparticles with Biocompatible Coatings in Biological Media, Living Cells and Organisms

“…Furthermore, the coating can generate, enhance and tailor smart properties like responsiveness [23] (pH, [24][25][26][27] temperature, [28][29][30] light [31,32]) and opportunities for further functionalization, e.g. markers, [33,34] targeting agents [35,36] and drugs [37,38]. There are plenty of concepts for smart nanodevices to be applied in the field of nanomedicine and many of them can be or have been realized as a proof of concept (Table 1) [39,40].…”