Design and functionalization strategies for multifunctional nanocarriers (e.g., nanoparticles, micelles, polymersomes) based on biodegradable/biocompatible polymers intended to be employed for active targeting and drug delivery are reviewed. This review will focus on the nature of the polymers involved in the preparation of targeted nanocarriers, the synthesis methods to achieve the desired macromolecular architecture, the selected coupling strategy, the choice of the homing molecules (vitamins, hormones, peptides, proteins, etc.), as well as the various strategies to display them at the surface of nanocarriers. The resulting morphologies and the main colloidal features will be given as well as an overview of the biological activities, with a special focus on the main in vivo achievements.

Design, functionalization strategies and biomedical applications of targeted biodegradable/biocompatible polymer-based nanocarriers for drug delivery

Chitosan nanoparticles are good drug carriers because of their good biocompatibility and biodegradability, and can be readily modified. As a new drug delivery system, they have attracted increasing attention for their wide applications in, for example, loading protein drugs, gene drugs, and anticancer chemical drugs, and via various routes of administration including oral, nasal, intravenous, and ocular. This paper reviews published research on chitosan nanoparticles, including its preparation methods, characteristics, modification, in vivo metabolic processes, and applications.

https://www.dovepress.com/getfile.php?fileID=9661

Recent advances of chitosan nanoparticles as drug carriers.

Most cancer drugs are designed to interfere with one or more events in cell proliferation or survival. As healthy cells may also need to proliferate and avoid apoptosis, anticancer agents can be toxic to such cells. To minimize these toxicities, strategies have been developed wherein the therapeutic agent is targeted to tumour cells through conjugation to a tumour-cell-specific small-molecule ligand, thereby reducing delivery to normal cells and the associated collateral toxicity. This Review describes the major principles in the design of ligand-targeted drugs and provides an overview of ligand-drug conjugates and ligand-imaging-agent conjugates that are currently in development.

Principles in the design of ligand-targeted cancer therapeutics and imaging agents

Naturally occurring polymers, particularly of the polysaccharide type, have been used pharmaceutically for the delivery of a wide variety of therapeutic agents. Chitosan, the second abundant naturally occurring polysaccharide next to cellulose, is a biocompatible and biodegradable mucoadhesive polymer that has been extensively used in the preparation of micro-as well as nanoparticles. The prepared particles have been exploited as a potential carrier for different therapeutic agents such as peptides, proteins, vaccines, DNA, and drugs for parenteral and nonparenteral administration. Therapeutic agent-loaded chitosan micro- or nanoparticles were found to be more stable, permeable, and bioactive. In this review, we are highlighting the different methods of preparation and characterization of chitosan micro- and nanoparticles, while reviewing the pharmaceutical applications of these particles in drug delivery. Moreover, the roles of chitosan derivatives and chitosan metal nanoparticles in drug delivery have been illustrated.

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Preparation, characterization, and potential application of chitosan, chitosan derivatives, and chitosan metal nanoparticles in pharmaceutical drug delivery.

Carboxymethyl chitosan: Properties and biomedical applications.

In recent years, several mathematical models have been developed for analysis of drug dissolution data, and many different mathematical approaches have been proposed to assess the similarity between two drug dissolution profiles. However, until now, no computer program has been reported for simplifying the calculations involved in the modeling and comparison of dissolution profiles. The purposes of this article are: (1) to describe the development of a software program, called DDSolver, for facilitating the assessment of similarity between drug dissolution data; (2) to establish a model library for fitting dissolution data using a nonlinear optimization method; and (3) to provide a brief review of available approaches for comparing drug dissolution profiles. DDSolver is a freely available program which is capable of performing most existing techniques for comparing drug release data, including exploratory data analysis, univariate ANOVA, ratio test procedures, the difference factor f
 1, the similarity factor f
 2, the Rescigno indices, the 90% confidence interval (CI) of difference method, the multivariate statistical distance method, the model-dependent method, the bootstrap f
 2 method, and Chow and Ki’s time series method. Sample runs of the program demonstrated that the results were satisfactory, and DDSolver could be served as a useful tool for dissolution data analysis.

DDSolver: An Add-In Program for Modeling and Comparison of Drug Dissolution Profiles

Synthesis and characterization of low-toxic amphiphilic chitosan derivatives and their application as micelle carrier for antitumor drug.

Somatostatin receptor-mediated tumor-targeting drug delivery using octreotide-PEG-deoxycholic acid conjugate-modified N-deoxycholic acid-O, N-hydroxyethylation chitosan micelles

Aifeng Zou

Papers

DDSolver: An Add-In Program for Modeling and Comparison of Drug Dissolution Profiles

Synthesis and characterization of low-toxic amphiphilic chitosan derivatives and their application as micelle carrier for antitumor drug.

Somatostatin receptor-mediated tumor-targeting drug delivery using octreotide-PEG-deoxycholic acid conjugate-modified N-deoxycholic acid-O, N-hydroxyethylation chitosan micelles

Formation, microstructure, biodistribution and absence of toxicity of polymeric micelles formed by N-octyl-N,O-carboxymethyl chitosan

Octreotide-Modified N-Octyl-O, N-Carboxymethyl Chitosan Micelles as Potential Carriers for Targeted Antitumor Drug Delivery