Shahzad Yasser, Khan Ikram Ullah, Hussain Talib, Serra Christophe A, Rizvi Syed A A, Gerber Minja, du Plessis Jeanetta
Centre of Excellence for Pharmaceutical Sciences, North-West University, South Africa.
Curr Cancer Drug Targets. 2014;14(8):752-63. doi: 10.2174/1568009614666141028100640.
Proteins are posed as the natural counterpart of the synthetic polymers for the development of drug delivery systems and few of them, have been regarded safe for drug delivery purposes by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Serum albumin is the most abundant protein in human blood. Interest in the exploration of pharmaceutical applications of albumin-based drug delivery carriers, especially for the delivery of chemotherapeutic agents, has increased in recent years. Albumin has several advantages over synthetic polymers, as it is biocompatible, biodegradable, has low cytotoxicity and has an excellent binding capacity with various drugs. Micro- and nano-carriers not only protect active pharmaceutical ingredients against degradation, but also offer a prolonged release of drugs in a controlled fashion. Since existing tumour chemotherapeutic agents neither target tumour cells, nor are they specific to tumour cells, a slow release of drugs from carriers would be beneficial in targeting carcinogenic cells intracellularly. This article aims at providing an overview of pharmaceutical applications of albumin as a drug delivery carrier in tumour chemotherapy.
蛋白质被认为是用于开发药物递送系统的合成聚合物的天然对应物，并且其中很少有被美国食品药品监督管理局（FDA）视为可安全用于药物递送目的的。血清白蛋白是人体血液中最丰富的蛋白质。近年来，对基于白蛋白的药物递送载体的药物应用探索，尤其是用于递送化疗药物的探索兴趣有所增加。与合成聚合物相比，白蛋白具有几个优点，因为它具有生物相容性、可生物降解性、低细胞毒性并且与各种药物具有出色的结合能力。微米和纳米载体不仅能保护活性药物成分不被降解，还能以可控方式实现药物的缓释。由于现有的肿瘤化疗药物既不靶向肿瘤细胞，也不具有肿瘤细胞特异性，药物从载体中的缓慢释放将有利于在细胞内靶向致癌细胞。本文旨在概述白蛋白作为肿瘤化疗药物递送载体的药物应用。
