Lipid Carrier Systems for Targeted Drug and Gene Delivery

Abstract

For effective chemotherapy, it is necessary to deliver therapeutic agents selectively to their target sites, since most drugs are associated with both beneficial effects and side effects. The use of lipid dispersion carrier systems, such as lipid emulsions and liposomes, as carriers of lipophilic drugs has attracted particular interest. A drug delivery system can be defined as a methodology for manipulating drug distribution in the body. Since drug distribution depends on the carrier, administration route, particle size of the carrier, lipid composition of the carrier, electric charge of the carrier and ligand density of the targeting carrier, these factors must be optimized. Recently, the lipid carrier system has also been applied to gene delivery systems for gene therapy. However, in both drug and gene medicine cases, a lack of cell-selectivity limits the wide application of this kind of drug and/or gene therapy. Therefore, lipid carrier systems for targeted drug and gene delivery must be developed for the rational therapy. In this review, we shall focus on the progress of research into lipid carrier systems for drug and gene delivery following systemic or local injection.

Intravenous administration of mannosylated cationic liposome/NFκB decoy complexes effectively prevent LPS‐induced cytokine production in a murine liver failure model

“…To develop a Kupffer cell-specific targeting carrier for NFjB decoy, receptor-mediated uptake is a promising Abbreviations: TNFa, tumor necrosis factor-a; LPS, lipopolysaccharide; NFjB, nuclear factor jB; PC, parenchymal cell; NPC, non-parenchymal cell approach [19] because Kupffer cells are known to express large numbers of mannose receptors on their surface [17]. Recently we designed cholesten-5-yloxy-N-{4-[(1-imino-2-D Dthiomannosyl-ethyl)-amino]butyl} formamide (Man-C4-Chol) to prepare mannosylated cationic liposomes (Man-liposomes) for mannose receptor-mediated plasmid DNA (pDNA) delivery [20][21][22][23].…”

Gene Delivery System: Non-Viral Mediated Chemical Approaches

“…• Treatment of cystic fibrosis, acute lung injuries and cornea tissues for degenerative ocular diseases [12][13][14].…”

Different strategies of gene delivery for treatment of cancer and other disorders

“…[41] On the other hand, lipid emulsions were shown to be better than liposomes due to stability, biocompatiblity, and high solubilizing capacity. [42] The stability of lipid emulsion is a critical factor for patient safety because larger particles may cause oil embolism when administered systemically. [43] In addition, physical properties and serum stability of the DNA/ nanoemulsion complexes represent that cationic lipid nanoemulsions can be more potent carriers for in vivo or in vitro gene (plasmid DNA) delivery than liposomes.…”