Abstract
Solid lipid nanoparticles are at the forefront of the rapidly developing field of nanotechnology with several potential applications in drug delivery, clinical medicine and research, as well as in other varied sciences. Due to their unique size-dependent properties, lipid nanoparticles offer the possibility to develop new therapeutics. The ability to incorporate drugs into nanocarriers offers a new prototype in drug delivery that could be used for secondary and tertiary levels of drug targeting. Hence, solid lipid nanoparticles hold great promise for reaching the goal of controlled and site specific drug delivery and hence have attracted wide attention of researchers. This review presents a broad treatment of solid lipid nanoparticles discussing their advantages, limitations and their possible remedies. The different types of nanocarriers which were based on solid lipid like solid lipid nanoparticles, nanostructured lipid carriers, lipid drug conjugates are discussed with their structural differences. Different production methods which are suitable for large scale production and applications of solid lipid nanoparticles are described. Appropriate analytical techniques for characterization of solid lipid nanoparticles like photon correlation spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry are highlighted. Aspects of solid lipid nanoparticles route of administration and their biodistribution are also incorporated. If appropriately investigated, solid lipid nanoparticles may open new vistas in therapy of complex diseases.
Highlights
Solid lipid nanoparticles are at the forefront of the rapidly developing field of nanotechnology with several potential applications in drug delivery, clinical medicine and research, as well as in other varied sciences
Nanostructured lipid carriers (NLC): NLC were introduced to overcome the potential difficulties with Solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN)[7,8,9]
SLN prepared by solvent emulsification/ evaporation: For the production of nanoparticle dispersions by precipitation in o/w emulsions[25] the lipophilic material is dissolved in water-immiscible organic solvent that is emulsified in an aqueous phase
Summary
SLNs combine the advantages and avoid the drawbacks of several colloidal carriers of its class, shows in Table 1[5,6] Potential disadvantages such as poor drug loading capacity, drug expulsion after polymeric transition during storage and relatively high water content of the dispersions (70-99.9%) have been observed. The highest drug load could be achieved by mixing solid lipids with small amounts of liquid lipids (oils) This model is called imperfect type NLC. The obtained LDC is processed with an aqueous surfactant solution (such as Tweens) to a nanoparticle formulation using high pressure homogenization (HPH) Such matrices may have potential application in brain targeting of hydrophilic drugs in serious protozoal infections[16]
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