Original Articles
Ashutosh Mishra, Roohi Kesharw
Abstract
The main objective of this review is to explore the various features, drug loading technology and biomedical application of resealed erythrocytes. Resealed erythrocyte becomes more popular because it has ability to circulate throughout the body, biocompatibility, zero order release kinetics of drugs, reproducibility and ease of preparation. Erythrocytes are biocompatible, biodegradable, possess long circulation half-lives and can be loaded with a variety of biologically active compounds using various chemical and physical methods (hypotonic dilution, hypotonic hemolysis, electro-insertion, entrapment by endocytosis, hypoosmotic lysis). These drug carriers are rapidly taken up from blood by macrophages of reticuloendothelial system (RES) present in liver, lung and spleen of the body. Wide varieties of drugs like Anti-inflammatory, steroidal and chemotherapeutic agents are seen to have reduced side effects upon incorporation into these carriers. Carrier erythrocytes are prepared by collecting blood sample from the organism & separating erythrocytes from plasma. By using various methods the cells are broken & the drug is entrapped into the erythrocytes, finally they are resealed and the ultimate carrier is referred to as “Resealed Erythrocytes”. The morphology, isolation techniques, properties and methods of drug loading are highlighted in this paper along with the characterization and applications of resealed erythrocytes, which hopefully put some light for researchers working in this area