Sphingosomes

Drug delivery by vesicular system has overtaken the pre-existing drugs by improving therapeutic efficacy and by sustaining and controlling action. Because of its wide variety of application in treatment of cancer, gene delivery, ocular drug delivery, scientists at Creative Biolabs have been working on sphingosomes for many years. As the leading service provider in the world, Creative Biolabs is professional in the field of lipid-based drug delivery platform development. At present, we provide sphingosomes services for our worldwide customers.

Sphingosomes

Sphingosomes, the important lipid vesicular drug delivery system, may be defined as concentric, bilayered vesicle where an aqueous volume is entirely enclosed by a membranous lipid bilayer mainly constituted of natural or synthetic sphingolipid. Sphingosomes are mainly composed of cholesterol and sphingolipid. They possess several advantages over the other formulation. They are very stable to acid hydrolysis and have better drug retention characteristics, as well as having enhanced therapeutic index of all drugs. Besides, design of sphingosomes is so flexible to allow coupling with site specific ligands to achieve active targeting. Sphingosomes can be administered in many ways including parenteral route of administration such as intravenous, intramuscular, subcutaneous, and intra-arterial. Classification of sphingosomes is based on the number of lipid bilayer formed and the size of vesicle. Sphingosomes can be unilamellar or multilamellar. Most desirable diameter of sphingosomes range is 0.05-0.2micron.

Fig.1 Structure of sphingosome.

Transport Mechanism of Sphingosomes

There are various mechanisms by which small unilamellar sphingosomal vesicles interact with cell such as stable adsorption, endocytosis, fusion, lipid transfer. Stable adsorption is mediated by non-specific electrostatic, hydrophobic or other forces or component present at the vesicles or cell surface. Endocytosis is known that the endocytotic vesicles uptake the intact vesicles and help in their delivery to the lysosomal apparatus. Fusion is referred to that the vesicular bilayer simply merges with the plasma membrane and releases the vesicular content in to the cytoplasmic space. Lastly, lipid transfer means transfer of individual lipid molecular between vesicles and the cell surface without the cell association of aqueous vesicle content.

Fig.2 Transport mechanism of sphingosomes at cellular level.

What We Can Do about Sphingosomes?

Aided by our well-established platforms and experienced scientists, we can provide comprehensive sphingosomes services, varying from lipid-based drug delivery characterization, delivery system construction services to in vitro efficacy validation, in vivo PK/PD validation. A wide spectrum of customized delivery products is available for your choice.

Advantages of Our Sphingosomes System

• Flexibility to couple with site specific ligands to achieve active targeting
• Providing selective passive targeting to tumor tissue
• Increasing efficacy and therapeutic index
• Increasing stability via encapsulation
• Reduction in toxicity of the encapsulated agent
• Improving pharmacokinetic effect

Sphingosomes because of its improved characteristics as well as compatible nature and safe to the host cells is considered as the most efficient novel vesicular drug delivery system. The sphingosomes has been used for diagnostic purpose, clinically used for delivering chemotherapeutic compounds, treatment of fungal infections and is used in ocular delivery. Creative Biolabs provides various high-quality sphingosomes with one or more above functions for our worldwide clients. In addition to the well-established sphingosomes service, our expertise also enables us to provide specific service to meet every customer's needs. For more details and information, please feel free to contact us.

For Research Use Only. Not For Clinical Use