Albumin as Drug Carriers

作者：Zhang Jianjun; Gao Yuan^*; Sun Wanjin

来源：Progress in Chemistry, 2011, 23(8): 1747-1754.

• albumin
• drug carriers
• chemical conjugates
• prodrugs
• modification

Albumin is the chief circulating protein which plays more and more important roles as drug carriers in pharmaceutical uses nowadays. Two basic drug delivery technologies can be distinguished; albumin chemically coupling with drugs to form albumin-drug conjugates; encapsulation of drugs into albumin nanoparticles by physical interaction. Exogenous albumin chemically coupling with drugs, endogenous albumin binding prodrugs and therapeutic peptides or proteins binding to albumin are the three forms of albumin-drug conjugates which possess the ability of improving the pharmacokinetic properties of drugs. Physical integration with albumin is another albumin based drug delivery technology that can promote some characteristics of the drugs in vitro like enhancing their solubility and stability. This review gives an account of different drug delivery systems which make use of albumin as drug carriers with a focus on such systems that successfully solved the issues and have reached an advanced stage in their R & D processes. The application of albumin as drug carriers still has some defects including low drug load and week targeting features. Constantly a large number of modifications and reshaping of albumin are carried out in order to solve the problems, some of which are also involved in this review because the requirements of clinical developments.

• 出版日期2011-8-24
• 单位中国药科大学