Nanobiocatalyst for drug delivery

Abstract

Since the half of the last century, the range of biocatalytic applications has been extended to almost every technological field. Particularly, biomedicine is one of the most auspicious fields for the application of enzymes since the origins of many pathologies are now analyzed and understood at the molecular level. The development of nanotechnology has provided the opportunity to study and understand the interaction of molecules at atom, group, and molecular levels, allowing us to stabilize enzymes by tailoring the interactions with the other macromolecules and the environment. There are many potential roles of the therapeutic use of enzymes such as part of restorative therapies to treat genetic disorders, as a prodrug activator, and as an assistant tool for drug kinetic controlled release from matrices. However, enzymes are very sensitive to environmental factors that could limit their applications. In the present chapter, some of the commonly reported strategies to develop drug delivery systems containing nanobiocatalysts are analyzed.