Drug delivery using metal oxide nanoparticles

MÓNICA C. GARCÍA; JAZMÍN TORRES; ANTONELLA V. DAN CÓRDOBA; MARCELA LONGHI; PAULA M. UBERMAN

Metal Oxides for Biomedical and Biosensor Applications

Elsevier

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2021; p. 35 - 83

During the lastdecades, the use of nanotechnology in order to reach purposes frombiomedical and pharmaceutical fields has had a progressivelyincreasing impact, even on preclinical developments, shaping theemerging scientific field of nanomedicine. Currently, many of thesedevelopments are entering to the clinical area and most of them arebased on nanosystems for diagnosis and/or therapy within the body,which are commonly composed by a carrier nanoplatform and a payloadfor imaging, sensing, and/or therapy; and optionally they can containtargeting ligands. Even though the innocuity ofnanoderivative-containing medicines raises questions among thegeneral society, as well as in the health professionals, theirintrinsic chemical, physical, and biological properties render thesenanomaterials particularly interesting in the biomedical field. Inthis sense, several different types of nanomaterials have beenstudied and reported. The development of nanoparticles (NPs) as drugcarriers began in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Since then, therehave been numerous reports and studies conducted every year and theirnumber has increased exponentially. NPs for pharmaceutical andmedical application are around now for over 50 years.Among the differenttypes of inorganic NPs, metal oxide NPs (MONPs) have captivated theattention of several scientists and pharmaceutical industries. Theyexhibited several advantages, including high stability, tunableshape, porosity, easy engineering to the desired size, easypreparation processes, no swelling variations, simple incorporationinto hydrophobic/hydrophilic systems, and ability for furtherfunctionalization by different molecules due to their negativesurface charge. Also, the interaction of MONPs with in vivo systemsis different, depending on their proper-ties (viz., size,shape, purity, stability, and surface properties). Therefore theirmorphology and interfacial properties need to be comprehensivelystudied.The use of MONPs fordiagnostics and/or therapy, including drug delivery offers manyadvantages for biomedical applications. MONPs have been explored forbioimaging, drug and gene delivery, hyperthermia treatments,antioxidant therapy, photodynamic therapy (PDT), antimicrobialtherapy, and so on. This chapter aims to cover the main aspectsregarding MONPs, including iron oxide, cerium oxide, titaniumdioxide, zinc oxide, copper oxides, silver oxide, magnesium oxide,calcium oxide, nickel oxide, and aluminum oxide. Their biomedicalapplications are highlighted, mainly focusing on their preclinicaland clinical evaluation, and some representative examples on theiruse for drug delivery are described.p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; line-height: 115% }