Protein-based nanoparticles as a drug delivery system: chances, risks, perspectives

This review aims to provide a broad overview of the development of drug delivery nanoparticulate systems, their classification by basic material, preparation method and administration route while focusing on recent trends in the field of protein-based nanoparticles. Literature on drug delivery by nanotechnology was reviewed in the light of previous and ongoing research. Potentials and challenges including regulatory issues are discussed in the context of possible applications of the miscellaneous nanoparticle devices. Over the past years homogeneous and clearly size-defined nanoparticles have been successfully designed from a large variety of starting materials. These nanoparticles offered diverse targeting or imaging properties in order to either enhance pharmacodynamic efficiency or reduce side effects of the delivered drug substance or to monitor the system’s fate in vivo. The latter is considered especially crucial when it comes to finally guiding nanoparticulate formulations through the clinical phase and its use for the patient’s benefit in the end. If the clinical requirements can be met, the main promises of the new nanoparticulate formulations and associated new routes of drug delivery can be met (a) to enable new types of medicines to be carried to previously inaccessible sites within the body or (b) to reduce risks in delivering already established drugs.