Nano-Drug Delivery Systems and Their Toxicological Assessment

Abstract

Nanotechnology, which involved in the science and technology from beginning of 1960s, defned as science of nano-sized particles. Nanotechnology is used in many felds, such as organic chemistry, molecular biology, industry, electronic and medicine. Thanks to usage of nanotechnology in the health sector, early diagnosis, prevention and better monitoring of diseases can be possible. Lower access of drug active ingredients than desired concentrations and their higher accumulations than the toxic levels in the action point are usual adverse effects in human and veterinary medicine. Therefore, studies are performed worldwide on drug delivery systems for transferring active ingredients in high concentrations to the target place and for reducing adverse effects as much as possible. Owing to nano-drug delivery systems, active ingredients can be transported to the effect point; they can be effective only in the target organ, tissue and cells; dose and dose intervals can be reduced and adverse effects can be decreased. But, because of small sizes of nano-drug complexes, exposure risk of humans and domestic animals to these materials increased and their toxic effects became confictive. Thus, toxicity studies for determination of safety of nano-drug delivery systems are very imported. It was reported that nanomaterials caused adverse effects on cells, such as apoptosis, autophagy, mitotic catastrophe. However, toxicological researches are mainly based on in vitro experiments and due to lack of enough in vivo studies, exact effects of nano-drug delivery systems on live organisms are not clear. Therefore, detailed, systematic and long term in vivo studies regarding toxicity of nano-drugs, are needed. In this review, important nano-drug and nano-drug delivery systems and their toxicities were evaluated. © 2020. Turk Hij Den Biyol Derg. All rights reserved.