title: Oral colon-specific therapeutic approaches toward treatment of inflammatory bowel disease.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic relapsing idiopathic disease. In clinical terms, most patients require lifelong medication associated with possible unpleasant adverse effects. Oral colon-specific drug delivery systems are designed to deliver therapeutic drugs to the inflamed colon to target pathophysiological manifestations of IBD. The aim is to maintain the drug with proper concentration in the inflamed colon, to enhance drug residence time and to minimize drug absorption by healthy tissues.
  
  
  METHODS
  This review addresses the main barriers for colon-specific drug delivery from organism, tissue and cell levels, respectively. It also summarizes novel colon-specific therapeutic strategies using microparticles and nanoparticles.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Oral colon-specific drug delivery represents a possible approach toward efficient treatment of IBD. As the environment of the gastrointestinal tract is harsh and intricate, this approach requires that drug carriers can respond to specific environmental factors of the inflamed colon, permitting stimulus-responsive release of loaded drugs to specific cells or even into specific organelles within cells.
authors.affiliation: Center for Diagnostics and Therapeutics, Department of Biology, Georgia State University, Atlanta, 30302, USA. bxiao@gsu.edu
authors.forename: Bo
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Xiao
authors.forename: Didier
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Merlin
mesh_terms: D000284:Administration, Oral; D000818:Animals; D003106:Colon / Q000187:drug effects*; D004337:Drug Carriers; D016503:Drug Delivery Systems; D006801:Humans; D015212:Inflammatory Bowel Diseases / Q000188:drug therapy*; D053758:Nanoparticles / Q000008:administration & dosage; D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations / Q000008:administration & dosage
chemical_list: D004337:Drug Carriers; D004364:Pharmaceutical Preparations