Abstract

RESEALED ERYTHROCYTES AS A NOVEL CARRIER FOR DRUG DELIVERY

P. Sireesha*, V. Vasu Naik and A. Seetha Devi

ABSTRACT

Carrier erythrocytes have been evaluated in thousands of drug administration in humans proving safety and efficacy of the treatments. Carrier erythrocytes, resealed erythrocytes loaded by a drug or other therapeutic agents, have been exploited extensively in recent years for both temporally and spatially controlled delivery of a wide variety of drugs and other bioactive agents owing to their remarkable degree of biocompatibility, biodegradability and a series of other potential advantages. Biopharmaceuticals, therapeutically significant peptides and proteins, nucleic acid-based biological, antigens and vaccines, are among the recently focused pharmaceuticals for being delivered using carrier erythrocytes. In this review article, the potential applications of erythrocytes in drug delivery have been reviewed with a particular stress on the studies and laboratory experiences on successful erythrocyte loading and characterization of the different classes of biopharmaceuticals.

Keywords: Resealed erythrocytes, Drug targeting, characterization methods and Applications.