Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Medicine, McGill University, Duff Medical Science Building, 3775 University Street, Montréal, Québec, Canada.
Expert Opin Drug Deliv. 2010 Oct;7(10):1191-207. doi: 10.1517/17425247.2010.514604.
This review aims to provide an overview of state-of-the-art chitosan-based nanosized carriers for the delivery of therapeutic agents. Chitosan nanocarriers are smart delivery systems owing to the possibility of their property alterations with various approaches, which would confer them with the possibility of spatiotemporal delivery features.
The focus of this review is principally on those aspects that have not often been addressed in other reviews. These include the influence of physicochemical properties of chitosan on delivery mechanisms and chitosan modification with a variety of ligand moieties specific for cell surface receptors to increase recognition and uptake of nanocarriers into cells through receptor-mediated endocytosis. Multiple examples that demonstrate the advantages of chitosan-based nanocarriers over other delivery systems of therapeutic agents are highlighted. Particular emphasis is given to the alteration of material properties by functionalization or combination with other polymers for their specific applications. Finally, structural and experimental parameters influencing transfection efficiency of chitosan-based nanocarriers are presented for both in vitro and in vivo gene delivery.
The readers will acquire knowledge of parameters influencing the properties of the chitosan-based nanocarriers for delivery of therapeutic agents (genetic material or drugs) in vitro and in vivo. They will get a better idea of the strategies to be adapted to tune the characteristics of chitosan and chitosan derivatives for specific delivery applications.
Chitosan is prone to chemical and physical modifications, and is very responsive to environmental stimuli such as temperature and pH. These features make chitosan a smart material with great potential for developing multifunctional nanocarrier systems to deliver large varieties of therapeutic agents administrated in multiple ways with reduced side effects.
本综述旨在概述基于壳聚糖的纳米载体在治疗剂传递方面的最新技术。由于可以通过各种方法改变壳聚糖纳米载体的性质，因此它们是智能的递药系统，这使它们有可能具有时空递药的特点。
本篇综述的重点主要是其他综述中不常涉及的方面。这些方面包括壳聚糖的物理化学性质对递药机制的影响，以及通过与各种针对细胞表面受体的配体部分进行壳聚糖修饰，来增加纳米载体通过受体介导的内吞作用被细胞识别和摄取的能力。文中强调了基于壳聚糖的纳米载体在治疗剂传递方面优于其他传递系统的多个实例。特别强调了通过功能化或与其他聚合物结合来改变材料性质，以实现其特定应用。最后，为体内和体外基因递呈，介绍了影响基于壳聚糖的纳米载体转染效率的结构和实验参数。
读者将了解影响治疗剂（遗传物质或药物）体外和体内传递的基于壳聚糖的纳米载体性质的参数。他们将更好地了解为了特定的递药应用而调整壳聚糖及其衍生物特性的策略。
壳聚糖易于进行化学和物理修饰，并且对环境刺激（如温度和 pH 值）非常敏感。这些特性使壳聚糖成为一种具有很大潜力的智能材料，可用于开发多功能纳米载体系统，以多种方式传递多种治疗剂，并减少副作用。
