Authors: Lee, Jun-hyung¹; Choi, Young Joo²; Lim, Yong-beom¹

Source: Expert Opinion on Drug Delivery, Volume 7, Number 3, March 2010 , pp. 341-351(11)

Publisher: Informa Healthcare

Abstract:

Importance of the field: Among many nanostructural shapes, filamentous shapes can have unique advantages over the others, including longer persistence in the bloodstream. With the advent of nanotechnology in recent years, a variety of shape-controlled nanostructures has been fabricated. As a wide variety of building blocks can self-assemble into filamentous nanostructures, there are many options available for biomaterial developments with filamentous nanostructures. Similarly to conventional spherical micelles, most filamentous nanostructures have hydrophobic cores where hydrophobic guest molecules can be encapsulated, which enable them to be used in drug delivery applications. Moreover, on suitable molecular design and self-assembly process control, filamentous nanostructures can also be made to deliver nucleic acids or even both drugs and nucleic acids simultaneously.

Areas covered in this review: This review describes the self-assembly process, current developments, and prospects of filamentous nanostructures in drug and gene delivery applications.

What the reader will gain: This review should be helpful in gaining insight into the self-assembly process and nanostructural shape control, the advantages of constructing filamentous nanostructures, and the design of more advanced nanobiomaterials.

Take home message: At present, the development of multifunctional nanostructures is one of the main focuses in nanobiomaterial developments. In this regard, filamentous nanostructures can be good initial targets for tailor-made nanostructure developments because they have more structural variables, as compared with spherical micelles.

Keywords: biomaterials; drug delivery; filamentous nanostructures; gene delivery; nanotechnology; self-assembly

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1517/17425240903559841

Affiliations: 1: 1Yonsei University, Translational Research Center for Protein Function Control, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Seoul 120-749, Korea +82 2 2123 5836; +82 2 365 5882;, Email: yblim@yonsei.ac.kr 2: 2Seoul National University, Institute of Health and Environment, School of Public Health, Seoul 110-460, Korea

Publication date: 2010-03-01

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