Recent advances with liposomes as pharmaceutical carriers

Abstract

Liposomes - microscopic phospholipid bubbles with a bilayered membrane structure - have received a lot of attention during the past 30 years as pharmaceutical carriers of great potential. More recently, many new developments have been seen in the area of liposomal drugs - from clinically approved products to new experimental applications, with gene delivery and cancer therapy still being the principal areas of interest. For further successful development of this field, promising trends must be identified and exploited, albeit with a clear understanding of the limitations of these approaches.

Nanodrug applications in photodynamic therapy

“…The resulting long-circulation liposomes, sterically stabilized liposomes or STEALTH ® liposomes demonstrate less reactivity with serum proteins and hence evade opsonization and RES uptake. The most widely used polymeric steric stabilizer is polyethylene glycol (PEG), a water-soluble polymer that exhibits protein resistance, low toxicity, non-immunogenicity and antigenicity and can be prepared synthetically with high purity and in large quantities which has led to their acceptance for clinical applications [37,125].…”

“…Immunoglobulins (Ig), especially, of the IgG class and their fragments are widely used targeting moieties for drug delivery system. The surface modification with targeting ligands, ideally, does not affect liposomal integrity or the binding properties of the antibody [125,136].…”

“…Transferrin receptors (TfR) are over-expressed on the surface of many tumors cells. Thus antibodies against TfR and Tf itself are popular ligands to target liposomes [125,140].…”

Advancing the Pharmaceutical Potential of Bioinorganic Hybrid Lipid‐Based Assemblies

“…Their resulting interest in this field is due to these products' inherent biocompatibility, biodegradability, and their various structural characteristics (based on the preparation optimization and design of hydrophilic/hydrophobic moieties within the amphiphile units),2 which allow them to self‐organize to form liposomes,3 vesicles,4 micelles,5 bicelles,6 and liquid crystalline dispersions7 for diverse therapeutics delivery 8. However, these bilayer and acyl‐chain lipid products have not fulfilled their practical potential due to their insufficient morphological stability and inclusion leakage in vitro and in vivo 9.…”

Preparation of liposomes: A novel application of microengineered membranes–From laboratory scale to large scale

“…Both lipophilic and hydrophilic drugs can be incorporated in liposomes, within the phospholipid bilayer and in the aqueous core, respectively [1]. The behaviour of liposomes in vivo and in vitro can be controlled by selecting the proper characteristics such as vesicle size, number of bilayers, bilayer fluidity, charge and hydrophilicity of the external surface, and the type of targeting molecules attached to the bilayer surface [2].…”