Stealth liposomes: review of the basic science, rationale, and clinical applications, existing and potential

By Maria Laura Immordino, F. Dosio, L. Cattel. International Journal of Nanomedicine, 2006

2,104 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Among several promising new drug-delivery systems, liposomes represent an advanced technology to deliver active molecules to the site of action, and at present several formulations are in clinical use. Research on liposome technology has progressed from conventional vesicles (“first-generation liposomes”) to “second-generation liposomes”, in which long-circulating liposomes are obtained by modulating the lipid composition, size, and charge of the vesicle. Liposomes with modified surfaces have also been developed using several molecules, such as glycolipids or sialic acid. A significant step in the development of long-circulating liposomes came with inclusion of the synthetic polymer poly-(ethylene glycol) (PEG) in liposome composition. The presence of PEG on the surface of the liposomal carrier has been shown to extend blood-circulation time while reducing mononuclear phagocyte system uptake (stealth liposomes). This technology has resulted in a large number of liposome formulations encapsulating active molecules, with high target efficiency and activity. Further, by synthetic modification of the terminal PEG molecule, stealth liposomes can be actively targeted with monoclonal antibodies or ligands. This review focuses on stealth technology and summarizes pre-clinical and clinical data relating to the principal liposome formulations; it also discusses emerging trends of this promising technology.

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5bba20c05beabeb69375d019f9db30942c1bfdb4

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Citations in the corpus

• Influence of cholesterol on liposome stability and on in vitro drug release (2015, background): “The presence of this unique structure is suitable for encapsulation of drugs with different lipophilicities such as strongly lipophilic or hydrophilic drugs, and drugs with intermediate log P [3], providing solutions for drug delivery.”
• Liposomes as nanomedical devices (2015, background): “its release, the drug encapsulated into liposomal carriers can exert its therapeutic effect.(9)”
• Autophagy and lysosomal dysfunction as emerging mechanisms of nanomaterial toxicity (2012, background): “Surface modification of nanomaterials with hydrophilic polymers such as polyethylene glycol, polyethylene oxide, and poloxamers can significantly reduce the opsonization of nanoparticles by serum proteins [14,15].”
• Liposome: classification, preparation, and applications (2013, background): “Furthermore, drugs with different lipophilicities can be encapsulated into liposomes: strongly lipophilic drugs are entrapped almost totally in the lipid bilayer, intensely hydrophilic drugs are located entirely in the aqueous compartment, and drugs with intermediary logP effortlessly partition betw”
• Advances and Challenges of Liposome Assisted Drug Delivery (2015, background): “Another form of paclitaxel, LEP-ETU (liposomeentrapped paclitaxel easy-to-use), is in Phase I/II trials (Zhang et al., 2005; Immordino et al., 2006).”
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