Cubosomes the pliant honeycombed nano-cargos in drug delivery applications

Abstract

Cubosomes are the aqueous dispersions of lipid-based liquid-crystalline bi-continuous phases, with the inner structure comprised of triply periodic, non-intersecting, curved, bilayers folded in cubic symmetry, and are organized to form two disjoined continuous water channels on an infinite periodic minimal surface. This review emphasized the peer findings about history and origin of cubosomes, including preparation, characterization and evaluation techniques, along with its promising features as a bio-therapeutics biodegradable cargo nano-material in descriptive manner. The structures of cubosomes, e.g. Q223, Q227, Q212, Q230 etc. are discussed here reflecting their versatile applicability. The automated cubosome preparation method in addition to the general preparation methods and assessment of cubosomes with the aid of both, ordinary visual characterization as well as sophisticated instruments like cryo-TEM, Cryo-FESEM, SAXS, LUMiFuge® have been described. Physical parameter’s quantification approves the drug-carriers system fit in therapeutics, i.e stability analysis, permeation, entrapment efficiency (EE), loading capacity (LC), drug content of dispersions, in-vitro drug release studies, HPLC analysis, in-vivo studies, etc., which are framed here in detail. Cubosomes owes the versatility and desired characteristic of a nanoparticle for drug delivery and other biomedical applications. Therefore, we have described here the up to date wide area applications of cubosomes administered through various routes.

Keywords

• biodegradable
• cubosome
• drug-delivery
• drug carriers
• nanoparticle