Sphingosomes a novel approach to vesicular drug delivery

Abstract

Vesicular systems have been realized as extremely useful carrier systems in various scientific domains. Sphingosomes is bilayered vesicles in which an aqueous volume is entirely enclosed by membrane lipid bilayer mainly composed of natural or synthetic sphingolipid. Sphingosomes solve the major drawback of vesicle system (liposomes, niosomes) like less stability, less in vivo circulation time, low tumor loading efficacy in case of cancer therapy. Sphingosomes are clinically used delivery system for chemotherapeutic agent, biological macromolecule and diagnostics. Due to flexibility in size and composition, different types of sphingosomes have been developed. The outcome of this review is that sphingosomes represents a promising vesicular drug delivery system to delivers therapeutic compounds for a range of possible applications.