title: Lipoproteins: from physiological roles to drug delivery potentials.
abstract: Lipoproteins, the endogenous lipid-protein associations responsible for lipid metabolism within the human body, have attracted interest in recent years for their potential as drug delivery carriers owing to, mainly, their lipophilic/amphiphilic nature, which makes them ideal for interacting with highly lipophilic drugs. After lipoprotein particles have been isolated from the blood, drugs can be "loaded" onto them with a variety of methods. Loading can be done either in soluble/suspended form in a liquid medium or as a dry film. Each method has advantages and disadvantages. The drug-loaded lipoproteins can be modified by the attachment of different ligands that target the particles to specific tissue/cell types within the body. A wide variety of drug molecules both from small molecular or macromolecular structures have been tested successfully, mostly in vitro, for their potential for delivery by lipoprotein carriers.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmaceutics, Faculty of Pharmacy, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran. hamidim@sums.ac.ir
authors.forename: Mehrdad
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hamidi
authors.forename: Mahshid
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Foroozesh
authors.forename: Abdolhossein
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Zarrin
mesh_terms: D004337:Drug Carriers / Q000737:chemistry*; D004339:Drug Compounding / Q000379:methods; D016503:Drug Delivery Systems; D006801:Humans; D008074:Lipoproteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000502:physiology; D013678:Technology, Pharmaceutical
chemical_list: D004337:Drug Carriers; D008074:Lipoproteins