Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2015 Nov 1;33(6 Pt 3):1342-54.
doi: 10.1016/j.biotechadv.2015.02.010. Epub 2015 Feb 26.

Polymer-based nanoparticles for oral insulin delivery: Revisited approaches

Pedro Fonte  1 , Francisca Araújo  2 , Cátia Silva  3 , Carla Pereira  4 , Salette Reis  5 , Hélder A Santos  6 , Bruno Sarmento  7
Affiliations
Review

Polymer-based nanoparticles for oral insulin delivery: Revisited approaches

Pedro Fonte et al. Biotechnol Adv. .

Erratum in

  • Biotechnol Adv. 2016 Jan-Feb;34(1):64

Abstract

Diabetes mellitus is a high prevalence and one of the most severe and lethal diseases in the world. Insulin is commonly used to treat diabetes in order to give patients a better life condition. However, due to bioavailability problems, the most common route of insulin administration is the subcutaneous route, which may present patients compliance problems to treatment. The oral administration is thus considered the most convenient alternative to deliver insulin, but it faces important challenges. The low stability of insulin in the gastrointestinal tract and low intestinal permeation, are problems to overcome. Therefore, the encapsulation of insulin into polymer-based nanoparticles is presented as a good strategy to improve insulin oral bioavailability. In the last years, different strategies and polymers have been used to encapsulate insulin and deliver it orally. Polymers with distinct properties from natural or synthetic sources have been used to achieve this aim, and among them may be found chitosan, dextran, alginate, poly(γ-glutamic acid), hyaluronic acid, poly(lactic acid), poly(lactide-co-glycolic acid), polycaprolactone (PCL), acrylic polymers and polyallylamine. Promising studies have been developed and positive results were obtained, but there is not a polymeric-based nanoparticle system to deliver insulin orally available in the market yet. There is also a lack of long term toxicity studies about the safety of the developed carriers. Thus, the aims of this review are first to provide a deep understanding on the oral delivery of insulin and the possible routes for its uptake, and then to overview the evolution of this field in the last years of research of insulin-loaded polymer-based nanoparticles in the academic and industrial fields. Toxicity concerns of the discussed nanocarriers are also addressed.

Keywords: Chitosan; Diabetes; Insulin; Intestinal uptake; Oral delivery; Poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid); Polymeric nanoparticles.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources

-