Gold Nanomaterials as Drug Delivery System against Diseases

Owing to the growing of diseases caused by infectious pathogens as well as toxicants, it is needed to develop targeted nanotechnology-based system in order to treat specific diseases. The treatments with conventional antimicrobial and anticarcinogenic agents against diseases have associated the development of multi drug resistance, high toxic side effects, inadequate therapeutic index and low bioavailability of drugs. In this concern, site- specific drug delivery may be an important arena of research to enhance drug-efficacy and reduce adverse side effects to host cells while antimicrobial and anticarcinogenic nanosized gold materials have emerged as potent drug delivery vehicles against various diseases due to their unique size dependent physico-chemical and optical properties, ease of surface modification and high surface-to-volume ratio associated active functional groups, and bio- compatibility. This review focussed on mainly gold nanoparticles (AuNPs), along with their mechanism of actions, biodistribution, pharmacokinetics, toxicities, host-immune response, and their potential applications against a lot of diseases. The review also demonstrated on the development of AuNPs coated drugs, ligands such as chitosan, polyethylene glycol (PEG) / polyethylene imine (PEI) with / without sugars, peptides, proteins, antibodies and genes as drug delivery carriers for targeting small molecules and drugs to diseased sites.