Applications of carrier erythrocytes in delivery of biopharmaceuticals

Carrier erythrocytes, resealed erythrocytes loaded by a drug or other therapeutic agents, have been exploited extensively in recent years for both temporally and spatially controlled delivery of a wide variety of drugs and other bioactive agents owing to their remarkable degree of biocompatibility, biodegradability and a series of other potential advantages. Biopharmaceuticals, therapeutically significant peptides and proteins, nucleic acid-based biologicals, antigens and vaccines, are among the recently focused pharmaceuticals for being delivered using carrier erythrocytes. In this article, the potential applications of erythrocytes in drug delivery have been reviewed with a particular stress on the studies and laboratory experiences on successful erythrocyte loading and characterization of the different classes of biopharmaceuticals. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V All rights reserved.