Cellular Drug Delivery Systems

Author(s): Swetha Pothula, Ravinder Kumar Sarepalli, Yadagiri Phalguna*, G. Sandhya Rani

Abstract: Delivery vehicles are often used to deliver low molecular weight (< 600 Daltons) therapeutic drugs, enzymes, proteins, nucleic acids and other biological agents to target organs or tissues in pathological conditions. Liposomes, Micelles, Hydrogels, Polymers, Vesicles, Nanospheres etc. are most commonly used drug carriers. Scientists explored new methods to improve circulation properties of drug and its carriers. In this approach, cellular based drug delivery systems may represent another alternative in which biological cells such as erythrocytes and lymphocytes are used as drug carriers. The natural characteristic properties such as biocompatibility, biodegradability, stability, specificity, longevity, capacity of holding high volumes of drug and efficiency in delivering drugs made them one of the incredible drug carriers. Therefore, this technique is named as “Cellular Drug Delivery Systems.” As of today, erythrocytes are most widely used carriers but use of lymphocytes (especially cytotoxic T-lymphocytes) as drug carriers is still in progress. The main goal of this paper is to provide basic and important information about the various topics related to cellular drug delivery systems. It discusses about the properties of carrier cells, their advantages, and disadvantages, methods of drug encapsulation, methods to determine in vitro and in vivo characteristics of drug-loaded cells, storage methods, and few therapeutic applications. For better understanding and to show how efficient these drug carriers, experimental results of individual carrier cells are discussed later.

PAGES: 1185-1192  |  28 VIEWS  47 DOWNLOADS