Injectable and biodegradable thermosensitive hydrogels loaded with PHBHHx nanoparticles for the sustained and controlled release of insulin

Dissolving and biodegradable microneedle technologies for transdermal sustained delivery of drug and vaccine

Microneedles were first conceptualized for drug delivery many decades ago, overcoming the shortages and preserving the advantages of hypodermic needle and conventional transdermal drug-delivery systems to some extent. Dissolving and biodegradable microneedle technologies have been used for transdermal sustained deliveries of different drugs and vaccines. This review describes microneedle geometry and the representative dissolving and biodegradable microneedle delivery methods via the skin, followed by the fabricating methods. Finally, this review puts forward some perspectives that require further investigation.

Preformed albumin corona, a protective coating for nanoparticles based drug delivery system

The non-specific interaction between nanoparticles (NPs) and plasma proteins occurs immediately after NPs enter the blood, resulting in the formation of the protein corona that thereafter replaces the original NPs and becomes what the organs and cells really see. Consequently, the in vivo fate of NPs and the biological responses to the NPs are changed. This is one substantial reason for the two main problems of the NPs based drug delivery system, i.e. nanotoxicity and rapid clearance of NPs from the blood after intravenous injection. Here, we demonstrate the successful application of the preformed albumin corona in inhibiting the plasma proteins adsorption and decreasing the complement activation, and ultimately in prolonging the blood circulation time and reducing the toxicity of the polymeric PHBHHx NPs. Since the interaction of proteins with various nano-materials and/or -particles is ubiquitous, pre-forming albumin corona has a great potential to be a versatile strategy for optimizing the NPs based drug delivery system.

Liposomes interiorly thickened with thermosensitive nanogels as novel drug delivery systems

The fundamental structure of liposomes suffers from drawbacks of physical instability. To overcome this problem, the hypothesis of this study was to thicken the liposomal interior by incorporating thermosensitive in situ gel. The so called gelliposomes (GLs) were prepared by a thin-film method using poloxamer solutions as interior aqueous phase. Interior thermosensitive gelation was proved by observation of sustained dissolving of the poloxamer gel after destroying the lipid bilayers with Triton X-100; structural transformation as observed under optical microscopy in a heating-cooling circle also proved the fact of interior gelling. The sol-gel transition temperatures of GLs were in good correlation with those of the bulk poloxamer solution counterparts, which could be easily tailored by adjusting the concentration and ratio of poloxamer 407 (P407) to poloxamer 188 (P188). Membrane anisotropy measurement indicated increased membrane rigidity. In vitro release of the model drug cytosine arabinoside from GLs showed sustained release characteristics for at least one week with typical biphasic kinetics. Study on storage stability and protection against the destroying effect by membrane destroyers indicated improved physical stability in comparison with conventional liposomes. In situ evading of phagocytic uptake by macrophages was observed for GLs, which however should be attributed to the effect of exteriorly adsorbed poloxamers. In conclusion, GLs present distinct characteristics to be used as potential drug delivery systems.