Abstract
Nanotechnology has made a great impact on the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, food, and cosmetics industries. More than 40% of the approved drugs are lipophilic and have poor solubility. This is the major rate-limiting step that influences the release profile and bioavailability of drugs. Several approaches have been reported to administer lipophilic drugs with improved solubility and bioavailability. Nanotechnology plays a crucial role in the targeted delivery of poorly soluble drugs. Nanotechnology-based drug delivery systems can be classified as solid lipid nanoparticulate drug delivery systems, emulsion-based nanodrug delivery systems, vesicular drug delivery systems, etc. Nanotechnology presents a new frontier in research and development to conquer the limitations coupled with the conventional drug delivery systems through the formation of specific functionalized particles. This review presents a bird's eye view on various aspects of lipid nanoparticles as carriers of bioactive molecules that is, synthesis, characterization, advantage, disadvantage, toxicity, and application in the medical field. Update on recent development in terms of patents and clinical trials of solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs) and nanostructure lipid carriers (NLCs) have also been discussed in this article.
Highlights
The main objective of designing an effective drug delivery system is to deliver the therapeutic molecules to target site by minimizing premature drug degradation, maintain optimum amount of drug at the tissue of interest to produce better therapeutic outcomes, and to prevent harmful side effects
The results indicated that the synthesized nanostructure lipid carriers (NLCs) had no genotoxicity (Brugè et al, 2013)
The present review discusses the recent advances in solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs) and NLCs, including technological progress in the delivery of old and new drugs, process of preparing the same, and their characterization methods
Summary
The main objective of designing an effective drug delivery system is to deliver the therapeutic molecules to target site by minimizing premature drug degradation, maintain optimum amount of drug at the tissue of interest to produce better therapeutic outcomes, and to prevent harmful side effects. These nanocarriers increase the solubility of lipophilic drugs which will augment permeability and improve the bioavailability of the drug. Lipid nanoparticles can substantially improve the solubility, bioavailability, pharmacokinetic parameters, intestinal absorption, skin penetrability, and ocular residence time of drugs which helps the molecule to cross the physiological barriers and decrease its side effects These drug delivery carriers demonstrate significant potential in pharmaceutical or medical applications. Nanostructure lipid carriers are designed to overcome the limitations of SLNs and are known as the second generation of SLNs (Wang et al, 2013) These colloidal drug carrier systems offer targeted delivery of drugs (Luan et al, 2013) and increase the bioavailability of hydrophobic drugs, and protect sensitive active compounds (Wang and Xia, 2014). This is due to the presence of abundant nanosized oil droplets dispersed in the solid matrix (Muller et al, 2002)
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