Nanocarriers for the delivery of active ingredients and fractions extracted from natural products used in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM)

•Improving efficacy of TCM preparations is a challenge in pharmaceutical sciences.•Goals in nanocarries to deliver active TCM ingredients or fractions are reviewed.•Nanocarriers are efficient in delivering active TCM ingredients or fractions.•This review focuses on recent advances in various nanocarriers.•The remaining questions and criteria for the desirable nanocarriers are discussed.

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been practiced for thousands of years with a recent increase in popularity. Despite promising biological activities of active ingredients and fractions from TCM, their poor solubility, poor stability, short biological half-life, ease of metabolism and rapid elimination hinder their clinical application. Therefore, overcoming these problems to improve the therapeutic efficacy of TCM preparations is a major focus of pharmaceutical sciences. Recently, nanocarriers have drawn increasing attention for their excellent and efficient delivery of active TCM ingredients or fractions. This review discusses problems in the delivery of active TCM ingredients or fractions; focuses on recent advances in nanocarriers that represent potential solutions to these problems, including lipid-based nanoparticles and polymeric, inorganic, and hybrid nanocarriers; and discusses unanswered questions in the field and criteria for the development of better nanocarriers for the delivery of active TCM ingredients or fractions to be focused on in future studies.

Graphical abstractPerformance of nanocarriers in delivering active ingredients or fractions from TCMFigure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide