Abstract
There is a pressing need for long-term, controlled drug release for sustained treatment of chronic or persistent medical conditions and diseases. Guided drug delivery is difficult because therapeutic compounds need to survive numerous transport barriers and binding targets throughout the body. Nanoscale protein-based polymers are increasingly used for drug and vaccine delivery to cross these biological barriers and through blood circulation to their molecular site of action. Protein-based polymers compared to synthetic polymers have the advantages of good biocompatibility, biodegradability, environmental sustainability, cost effectiveness and availability. This review addresses the sources of protein-based polymers, compares the similarity and differences, and highlights characteristic properties and functionality of these protein materials for sustained and controlled drug release. Targeted drug delivery using highly functional multicomponent protein composites to guide active drugs to the site of interest will also be discussed. A systematical elucidation of drug-delivery efficiency in the case of molecular weight, particle size, shape, morphology, and porosity of materials will then be demonstrated to achieve increased drug absorption. Finally, several important biomedical applications of protein-based materials with drug-delivery function—including bone healing, antibiotic release, wound healing, and corneal regeneration, as well as diabetes, neuroinflammation and cancer treatments—are summarized at the end of this review.
Highlights
New discoveries in medicine and the way different ailments should be treated create a need for more sophisticated methods of drug delivery
Many fibrous protein materials such as keratin, collagen, elastin and silk have been widely used in drug-delivery research (Figure 1)
To study the electrostatic forces between negatively charged keratins and positively charged growth factors, the binding and release kinetics of bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP-2) from the kerateines’ network are examined by electrostatic or coulombic interactions in various pH and salt concentrations. These findings contribute to the understanding of the release kinetics of BMP-2-conjugated kerateines systems, which can potentially be employed in bone repair and regeneration as drug-delivery vehicles [79]
Summary
New discoveries in medicine and the way different ailments should be treated create a need for more sophisticated methods of drug delivery. While the oral route for administering drugs is the most convenient, safe and widely accepted method, these bioactive compounds must be insoluble in the stomach to avoid substantial losses due to acid and pepsin in the stomach and pancreatic enzymes in the small intestine [4]. Once it reaches the intestine, drugs must be dissolvable and absorbed through the intestinal mucosa [3]. Using these natural protein polymers as an excipient for transdermal, nasal, ocular and oral drug delivery, we will discuss in detail the effects of drug particle size and density and their binding capacity
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