A versatile encapsulation technolgoy

摘要

In recent years, interest in liposome vesicular structures has increased as a result of their potential use as delivery systems for drugs and other bioactive materials. The first liposome technology centered on vesicles composed of phospholipids, generally phosphatidylcholine, and work continues with this class of compounds. However, there are some disadvantages: First, the compounds tend to be unstable, and manufactured products using phospholipids have low shelf life; second, they are expensive to purify and synthesize. Therefore, there has been keen interest in finding other compounds to replace phospholipid liposomes that can function as membrane mimetic amphiphiles. Such compounds have "heads" that are hydrophilic and "tails" that are hydrophobic. Typical amphiphiles are long-chain fatty acids and their derivatives, long-chain alcohols and their derivatives, long-chain amines and amides, polyolipids, and sphingo- and glycerolipids. Liposomes of this type do not have the disadvantages given above for phospholipids. Some of their properties and applications are described here, specifically pertaining to the patented Novasome~R lipid vesicle technology (IGI, Inc., Buena, NJ).