抄録
Liposomes are the models of membranes. Liposomalization of various drugs has revealed the enhancement of their efficacy : Since liposomes can reduce the side effect of the drugs by the site-specific delivery, intracellular targeting, and controlled release of drugs, many functional liposomes have been developed including cationic liposomes and antibody-conjugating immunoliposomes. In this article, the preparation and characterization of functional liposomes are discussed. We have developed intracellular hyperthermia using magnetic nanoparticles (magnetites) by the feature that magnetites can generate heat under high frequency alternative magnetic field. In addition, magnetites affect the magnetic gradient in a magnetic field and those can be used as a contrast enhancement reagent for MRI. Therefore, if magnetite can be accumulated only in tumor tissue, they can afford cancer diagnosis and tumor-specific hyperthermia. To deliver the magnetites toward tumors, two kinds of functional liposomes have been developed, which were “magnetite cationic liposomes(IVICLs)” and “Fab'-conjugating magnetoliposomes (FMLs)”. MCLs were designed for the intratumor injection and showed the high affinity to the tumor cells. On the other hands, FMLs were designed for “missile liposomes” which can accumulate in the tumor by antigens-antibody reaction even in the case of intravascular injection. Here, we review these functional liposomes and discussed how to achieve the ultimate goal for tumor targeting.
