Dendrimer a versatile polymer in drug delivery

2010

Dendrimers are new class of polymeric materials. It is generally described as a macromolecule, which is characterized by its extensively branched 3D structure that provides a high degree of surface functionality and versatility. Dendrimers are highly branched, globular macromolecules with many arms emanating from a central core. The unique properties associated with these dendrimers such as uniform size, high degree of branching, water solubility, multivalency, well-defined molecular weight and available internal cavities make them attractive for biological and drug-delivery applications. Present review will have main focus on advantages, different synthesis strategies of dendrimers, types of dendrimers and recent studies on important applications of dendrimers.

Asian Journal of Pharmaceutical Research and Development

Dendrimers are new effectiveness of polymeric substances. They are relatively branched, monodisperse macromolecules. Structural Advantages permit dendrimers to play a critical function inside the fields of nanotechnology, pharmaceutical, and medicinal chemistry. As a result in their precise behavior dendrimers are suitable for a wide variety of biomedical and commercial packages. The paper gives a quick evaluation of dendrimers’ physicochemical properties and their possible use in various regions of research, generation, and treatment.

Journal of Applied Pharmaceutical Science

Dendrimers are novel synthetic polymeric systems having improved physical and chemical properties due to their unique three dimensional architecture. Dendrimers have a well defined size, shape, molecular weight and monodispersity. These are compatible with drug moieties as well as bioactive molecules like DNA, heparin and other polyanions. The nanoscopic size and recognition abilities make dendrimers as ideal building blocks for self-assembly and self-organization systems. The cavities inside the dendritic structure can be modified to incorporate hydrophobic and hydrophilic drugs. The terminal groups are modified to attach antibodies and bioactive substances for targeting purpose along with providing miscibility, reactivity and solubility. Currently, dendrimers are of great interest for delivering drug molecules via different routes as a nanocarrier. Toxicity problems associated with cationic dendrimers are overcome by PEGylation, which neutralizes the charge on them. Dendrimers possess suitable properties to establish itself as a potential carrier for delivery of therapeutic agents irrespective of certain synthetic and regulatory constraints. This review contains various structural aspects and properties of dendrimers along with their pharmaceutical application as a potential novel drug delivery carrier.

Drug Delivery Letters, 2018

Background: Dendrimers are nano-sized drug delivery systems that present significant advantages, including ease of construction, large number of polymers available for their synthesis and amenability to affix various types of ligands for targeting to specific site. The nanosystem with unique functional architecture and macromolecular characteristics has garnered considerable interest amongst researchers and various research reports and patents inputs can be found in literature. Objective: Till date more than ten families of dendrimers have been reported for their wide applications in medicine including diagnostic/clinical, and also in industrial arenas. Unlike traditional polymers, many dendrimers have remarkable features like improved aqueous solubility, biocompatibility, polyvalency and precise molecular weight. These features make dendrimers an ideal vehicle for drug delivery and targeting applications. Conclusion: The current review is an attempt to define types of dendrimers and their applications in drug delivery and cosmetics. The write up also highlights future perspectives of the multifunctional nanosystem.

International Journal of Research in Pharmaceutical Sciences, 2020

In this particular review, it is been noted that Dendrimers are novel three-dimensional globular nano-polymeric structure; having multiple functional groups on the surface enhances their function. Synonymous terms for dendrimer include arborols and cascade molecules. The importance of dendrimers in a large variety of fields has been detected, where the various types of dendrimers helps in various fields of drug delivery with the different types of dendrimers with the generation. Hence the dendrimer gains more attention from researchers among various nano-materials. Convenient synthesis of the structure makes them as a good nano-material for drug delivery. In recent, dendrimers showed their activity in different drug delivery systems having properties like cancer targeting, anti-bacterial, ocular drug delivery, etc.. The future direction about the dendrimers are been discussed. The present review is focused on types of dendrimers like Polypropylene Imine dendrimer (PPI), Poly...

European Journal of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics, 2009

About forty percent of newly developed drugs are rejected by the pharmaceutical industry and will never benefit a patient because of poor bioavailability due to low water solubility and/or cell membrane permeability. New delivery technologies could help to overcome this challenge. Nanostructures with uniform and well-defined particle size and shape are of eminent interest in biomedical applications because of their ability to cross cell membranes and to reduce the risk of premature clearance from the body. The high level of control over the dendritic architecture (size, branching density, surface functionality) makes dendrimers ideal carriers in these applications. Many commercial small molecule drugs with anticancer, anti-inflammatory, and antimicrobial activity have been successfully associated with dendrimers such as poly(amidoamine) (PAMAM), poly(propylene imine) (PPI or DAB) and poly(etherhydroxylamine) (PEHAM) dendrimers, either via physical interactions or through chemical bonding ('prodrug approach'). Targeted delivery is possible via targeting ligands conjugated to the dendrimer surface or via the enhanced permeability and retention (EPR) effect. The biocompatibility of dendrimers follows patterns known from other small particles. Cationic surfaces show cytotoxicity; however, derivatization with fatty acid or PEG chains, reducing the overall charge density and minimizing contact between cell surfaces and dendrimers, can reduce toxic effects.

Journal of Drug Delivery and Therapeutics, 2016

This review gives concise information about the dendrimers, properties, synthesis and application in drug delivery, diagnosis and therapy. Due to their unique architecture these have improved physical and chemical properties. They show high solubility, miscibility and reactivity due to their terminal groups. Dendrimers have well defined size, shape, molecular weight and monodispersity. These properties make the dendrimers a suitable carrier in drug delivery application. Dendrimers are unimolecular miceller in nature and due to this enhances the solubility of poorly soluble drugs. Their compatibility with DNA, heparin and polyanions make them more versatile. Dendrimers, also referred as modern day polymers, they offer much more good properties than the conventional polymers. Due to their multivalent and mono disperse character dendrimers have stimulated wide interest in the field of chemistry biology, especially in applications like drug delivery, gene therapy and chemotherapy. Self assembly produces a faster means of generating nanoscopic functional and structural systems. But their actual utility in drug delivery can be assessed only after deep understanding of factors affecting their properties and their behavior in vivo.

The development of novel particulate systems with defined shapes and sizes is of prominent interest in certain therapeutic applications such as drug delivery, gene transfection, diagnostic and imaging. On controlling and designing optimized architectural design of dendrimers; their shape, size, branching pattern length/density, and their surface functionality, clearly discriminate these structures as inimitable and optimal hauler in those applications. Moderately modified dendrimers have been shown to act as nano-drugs adjacent to tumors, viruses and bacteria. Recent triumph in simplifying and optimizing the production of dendrimers make available a large variety of structures while simultaneously reducing the cost of their production. The reflections on biomedical applications of dendrimers given in this review clearly make obvious the impending of this new fourth major class of polymer structural design and undeniably prove the high expectation for the future of dendrimers.

Novel drug delivery system aims to deliver the drug at a rate directed by the needs of the body during the period of treatment, and target the active entity to the site of action. A number of novel drug delivery systems have emerged encompassing various routes of administration, to achieve controlled and targeted drug delivery, dendrimer carriers being one of them. Dendrimers are highly branched, star-shaped macromolecules with nanometer-scale dimensions. It is a novel three dimensional structure and these three components are: a central core, an interior dendritic structure (the branches), and an exterior surface with functional surface groups. It is also improve the physical, chemical properties due to their structure. Its other properties like very small size, polyvalenc, monodispersit, stability make it an appropriate carrier for delivering drugs with precision and selectivity. The terminal groups are modified to attach biologically active substances for targeting purpose. Dendrimers are suitable for a wide range of targeted drug delivery, controlled drug delivery, gene delivery and industrial applications. Cationic surfaces of dendrimers show cytotoxicity, derivatization with fatty acid or PEG chains, reducing the overall charge density and minimizing contact between cell surfaces and dendrimers can reduce toxic effects. Different types of products are formulated by using dendrimers for treatment of many diseases. The present review has focused on the different strategies of their synthesis, different methods of drug entraptment, drug delivery and targeting, its applications, interactions involved in formation of drug-dendrimer complex along with characterization techniques employed for their evaluation, toxicity problems.

Journal of Pharmaceutical & Scientific Innovation, 2016

Dendrimers are unique class of polymers which play an important role in emerging nanotechnology. Novel drug delivery is one of the most attractive potential applications of dendrimers. Dendrimers are macromolecules having highly branched, 3D structure, nanoscale architecture with monodispersity and high functionality. Dendrimers are dominated by the functional groups on the molecular surface for example; a dendrimer can be water soluble when its end groups like a carboxylic group. These features make it attractive candidates as drug carrier for controlled release or targeted delivery. Dendrimer is a smart polymer having various applicability in pharmaceutics, industry and diagnosis.