Nanoparticle-based drug delivery system with enhanced loading and targeting performance: A brief account

Abstract

For the construction of a nanoparticle (NP)-supported drug delivery system(DDS), loading efficiency, stable encapsulation, and targeted delivery are con-sidered crucial to achieve a high therapeutic outcome of the resulting system.Conventionally, NPs are functionalized with desired molecules via covalentinteractions, which do not only limit the intraparticle space for drug loadingbut also cause significant loss of the preloaded drug through the multistepchemical reactions. Furthermore, NPs with covalently modified surface are eas-ily surrounded with biomolecules during blood circulation, and their accumula-tion in a target site becomes considerably hampered. Keeping these issues inmind, we herein summarize the recently reported unconventional strategies toprepare a more powerful DDS with enhanced loading and targeting ability, byinstalling a noncovalent polymeric gatekeeper or surface-protective biomolecu-lar layer on the NP surface.