Abstract
Keratin is a structural protein of mammalian tissues and birds, representing the principal constituent of hair, nails, skin, wool, hooves, horns, beaks, and feathers, and playing an essential role in protecting the body from external harassment. Due to its intrinsic features such as biocompatibility, biodegradability, responsiveness to specific biological environment, and physical–chemical properties, keratin has been extensively explored in the production of nanocarriers of active principles for different biomedical applications. In the present review paper, we aimed to give a literature overview of keratin-based nanoparticles produced starting from human hair, wool, and chicken feathers. Along with the chemical and structural description of keratin nanoparticles, selected in vitro and in vivo biological data are also discussed to provide a more comprehensive framework of possible fields of application of this protein. Despite the considerable number of papers describing the production and use of keratin nanoparticles as carries of anticancer and antimicrobial drugs or as hemostatic and wound healing materials, still, efforts are needed to implement keratin nanoparticles towards their clinical application.
Highlights
The synthesis and discovery of novel and more potent drugs have represented the primary driver of pharmaceutical companies for a long time
keratin-based nanoparticles (KNPs) are obtained from human hair, wool, and chicken feathers using a broad variety of techniques, including electrospray [15], ionic gelation [16], self-assembly [17], drug-induced aggregation [18], desolvation [19], nanoprecipitation [20], etc
On day 14, the control group displayed 69% wound closure, whereas RKNP37, RKNP81, and KNPs showed wound closures of 81, 85, and 74%, respectively (Figure 4). These results indicated that keratin nanoparticles accelerate the wound healing process, and that recombinant KNPs have greater wound-healing ability, most probably due to their higher purity, suggesting that this feature plays a key role in the wound-healing process
Summary
The synthesis and discovery of novel and more potent drugs have represented the primary driver of pharmaceutical companies for a long time. Effective drug delivery is still challenging primarily because of our limited knowledge of biological barriers and their interaction with drugs’ carriers [2]. On this basis, enormous efforts have been dedicated to developing suitably designed and effective drug delivery systems based on biomaterials, owing to their biocompatibility, biodegradability, non-immunogenicity, ease of production and up-scaling, and reproducibility [3]. Keratin is a structural protein present in mammalian tissues (hair, fur, nails, skin, wool, hooves, and horns), and birds (e.g., bird beaks and feathers), playing an important role in protecting the body from external harassment. Keratin nanocarrier production of different origins will be described along with available biological data
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