Photopolymerizable robust lipids towards reliability and their applications

Abstract

Synthetic lipids have been studied as components in membrane models and drug delivery systems. Polymerizable phospholipids, especially photosensitive ones, can form new bilayer bonds when UV light irradiates. These phospholipids have been known since the 1980s, but in the last few years, new applications have been highlighted. Its use in drug delivery systems is interesting since the photopolymerization reaction produces highly stable vesicles. Additionally, the rearrangement of the acyl chains during the photopolymerization process can be applied in the generation of pores, resulting in systems that serve for drug-controlled release. In this article, our goal was to envision earlier photopolymers' publications towards the implications of these versatile phospholipids that led to proposed systems for drug delivery and controlled release of drugs at specific sites. This review offers a broad background towards a simple, reliable, and robust platform to make its application available.

Keywords: Biomembranes; Drug delivery; Lipids; Photopolymerization.

Fig. 1

Lipid synthesized by Johnston et al. (1980) (image obtained from avantilipids.com)

Fig. 2

Visible spectra of photopolymerizable lipids with (a) 5 cycles; (b) 10 cycles, and (c) 15 cycles of UV irradiation

Fig. 3

Formation of polyconjugated polymers upon UV irradiation (scheme based on Johnston et al. 1980)

Fig. 4

Proposed model describing the gel phase polymers (Temprana et al. 2010)

Fig. 5

Scheme of the strategy adopted by Hindley et al. (2018)

Fig. 6

Scheme of porous formation in DIB, according to Punnamaraju et al. (2012)