Abstract
Hydrogels evolved as an outstanding carrier material for local and controlled drug delivery that tend to overcome the shortcomings of old conventional dosage forms for small drugs (NSAIDS) and large peptides and proteins. The aqueous swellable and crosslinked polymeric network structure of hydrogels is composed of various natural, synthetic and semisynthetic biodegradable polymers. Hydrogels have remarkable properties of functionality, reversibility, sterilizability, and biocompatibility. All these dynamic properties of hydrogels have increased the interest in their use as a carrier for peptides and proteins to be released slowly in a sustained manner. Peptide and proteins are remarkable therapeutic agents in today’s world that allow the treatment of severe, chronic and life-threatening diseases, such as diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, hepatitis. Despite few limitations, hydrogels provide fine tuning of proteins and peptides delivery with enormous impact in clinical medicine. Novels drug delivery systems composed of smart peptides and molecules have the ability to drive self-assembly and form hydrogels at physiological pH. These hydrogels are significantly important for biological and medical fields. The primary objective of this article is to review current issues concerned with the therapeutic peptides and proteins and impact of remarkable properties of hydrogels on these therapeutic agents. Different routes for pharmaceutical peptides and proteins and superiority over other drugs candidates are presented. Recent advances based on various approaches like self-assembly of peptides and small molecules to form novel hydrogels are also discussed. The article will also review the literature concerning the classification of hydrogels on a different basis, polymers used, “release mechanisms” their physical and chemical characteristics and diverse applications.
Highlights
Targeted drug delivery to specific body parts has become one of the important ventures of the today’s world as conventional dosage forms are generally associated with difficulties in approaching the target site at the specified dose after or during a proper time period
Hydrogels form a promising material for controlled release of pharmaceutical proteins and peptides due to their capacity to incorporate therapeutical agents in the hydrophilic polymeric network
Many cross-linking methods have been devised for hydrogel synthesis
Summary
Targeted drug delivery to specific body parts has become one of the important ventures of the today’s world as conventional dosage forms are generally associated with difficulties in approaching the target site at the specified dose after or during a proper time period. They have a poor tensile strength which could limit their use in drug loading applications and can result in the premature dissolution or flow away of the hydrogel from targeted tissues and organs This drawback is of much importance in many typical topical and subcutaneous drug delivery technologies. Several other self-assembling peptide have been reported, including those based on D- and L-amino acids, which have several advantages [27,28] Hydrophobic drugs, such as NSAIDs, can be delivered in a prolong manner with these systems if they participate to the self-assembly process and are bond non-covalently to the supra molecular structure [29]. The benefits of having favorable time to market and high level of success in clinical applications in comparison with conventional pharmaceuticals, therapeutical peptides and proteins will play the main role in the treatment of various ailments [30,31]
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