Dendrimers for drug delivery purposes

Currently, various types of nanocarriers have been widely used to deliver bioactive compounds to improve the specificity/effectiveness of the active compound. Among these, dendrimers have gained considerable interest as a delivery system due to their exceptional properties including high water solubility, monodispersity, biocompatibility, and low immunogenicity. These multiple branched monomers have well-defined 3D structures with favorable manufacturing approaches at a large scale. Thus dendrimer-based delivery systems possess unique features that are advantageous for drug delivery in clinics. Various types of drug molecules, including hydrophobic or hydrophilic small molecules and large nucleic acid molecules, can be loaded into dendrimers by either physical or chemical interactions. The enhanced drug solubility and cellular permeation of dendrimer-based delivery systems enable multiple treatment strategies with outstanding efficacy. So far, research has focus on the development of novel delivery strategies using dendrimers for a wide variety of diseases including anticancer, antimicrobial, anti-HIV, and antiosteoarthritis therapies.