抄録
Liposomes are suitable substances as drug carriers. However, there are inevitable drawback in their use in vivo. Liposomes are recognized as foreign and phagocytosed by the cells of the reticuloendothelial system (RES). Sugar modifications endow new aspects with in vivo fate of liposomes. Liposomes are efficiently taken up by parenchymal cells by galactose modification and nonparenchymal cells by mannose modification. In this case, some spacers seem to be necessary to recognize the sugar moiety by the cell as shown in Fig. 1. Ganglioside Gm1 suppress the uptake of liposomes by the RES and prolong the liposomal circulation in mice. Amino sugars modifications also prolong the liposomal circulation. However, the mechanisms are not still clear and more investigations concerning the interaction of liposomes with cell surfaces are necessary to control the in vivo fate of liposomes more precisely.
