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Review
. 2020 Dec 6;12(12):1183.
doi: 10.3390/pharmaceutics12121183.

Natural Polysaccharide Carriers in Brain Delivery: Challenge and Perspective

Manuela Curcio  1 , Giuseppe Cirillo  1 , Jourdin R C Rouaen  2   3 , Federica Saletta  2 , Fiore Pasquale Nicoletta  1 , Orazio Vittorio  2   3   4 , Francesca Iemma  1
Affiliations
Review

Natural Polysaccharide Carriers in Brain Delivery: Challenge and Perspective

Manuela Curcio et al. Pharmaceutics. .

Abstract

Targeted drug delivery systems represent valuable tools to enhance the accumulation of therapeutics in the brain. Here, the presence of the blood brain barrier strongly hinders the passage of foreign substances, often limiting the effectiveness of pharmacological therapies. Among the plethora of materials used for the development of these systems, natural polysaccharides are attracting growing interest because of their biocompatibility, muco-adhesion, and chemical versatility which allow a wide range of carriers with tailored physico-chemical features to be synthetized. This review describes the state of the art in the field of targeted carriers based on natural polysaccharides over the last five years, focusing on the main targeting strategies, namely passive and active transport, stimuli-responsive materials and the administration route. In addition, in the last section, the efficacy of the reviewed carriers in each specific brain diseases is summarized and commented on in terms of enhancement of either blood brain barrier (BBB) permeation ability or drug bioavailability in the brain.

Keywords: brain diseases; drug delivery; nanocarriers; polysaccharides.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Overview of the main strategies (inner circle) for the vectorization of therapeutic agents to the brain. For each strategy, we report the frequency of use (%) of the different polysaccharide materials (middle circle) in the development of the polysaccharide-containing carriers (PSC) drug delivery systems and their application in the treatment of brain diseases (outer circle). CH: chitosan; DEX: dextran; HA: hyaluronic acid.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Passive and active transport of polysaccharide carriers across the blood brain barrier (BBB).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Representation of multifunctional nanovehicles for GMB theranostics based on a supramolecular colloid complex ZnS@CMC combined with DOX. Reproduced with permission from [31]. Elsevier (2019).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Effectiveness of theranostic nanovehicles based on CH-Magnevist® in targeting cerebrovascular amyloid deposits. * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001. Reproduced with permission from [46]. Elsevier 2014.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Schematic representation of SHp-RBC-NP/NR2B9C. Reproduced with permission from [67]. ACS (2018).
Figure 6
Figure 6
Effectiveness of hyaluronic acid-based pH-responsive alloy–drug nanoconjugates for glioblastoma treatment. Reproduced with permission from [73]. Elsevier (2019).
Figure 7
Figure 7
Nose to brain direct administration route of PSC.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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