Strategies for enhancing nanoscale brain targeting drug delivery / 药学学报

ABSTRACT

The blood brain barrier can selectively block the uptake of xenobiotics from peripheral blood into the brain. Although this is important for maintaining the stability of the brain environment and normal function of the central nervous system, it presents a challenge for delivery of therapeutic drugs to the brain. Passive brain-targeting drug carrier is able to increase the drug concentration in the brain by enhancing the affinity to blood-brain barrier and/or inhibiting the efflux absorbed drug via P-glycoprotein. The active brain-targeting drug carrier can be obtained by linking specific ligands or antibodies onto passive target carriers to achieve precise delivery of drugs to the brain. Dual targeting drug carriers obtained by combining tumor cell targeting with brain targeting have shown their advantages for treatment of brain tumors. The targeted drug delivery to brain will provide a unique manner for the treatment of brain diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, brain tumors, and stroke. Among the drug delivery systems of passive brain-targeting, active brain-targeting and dual brain-targeting, we evaluated the strategies to improve brain drug delivery efficiency, such as by reducing carrier size, opening tight junctions between cells at the blood-brain barrier, incorporating hydrophilic groups on the surface of the carrier, and alternative intranasal drug administration.