Nanobubbles to aid drug delivery

Abstract

Nanobubbles have emerged as one of the most promising carrier systems for imaging and simultaneous drug delivery referred to as theranostic agents. With the capability to be surface functionalized by membrane-specific antibodies, targeting to specific tissues has become feasible. Nanobubbles entail differences in compressibility and density compared to blood and surrounding tissues and can oscillate when experience pressure differences. Due to this, they are well known for their contrasting capacity under the acoustic fields. For targeted delivery, they harness the enhanced retention and permeability (EPR) effect to reach the target cells due to their size in the nano range. Nanobubbles despite having so efficient in their application, suffer from criticism over their stability owing to the difference in the pressure created inside and outside of the system. The current chapter summarizes the role of nanobubbles as a contrast agent, their composition, preparation, stability issues, and factors affecting stability. The chapters also highlights the importance of nanobubbles as bioimaging, drug delivery, and theranostic agents for various biomedical and pharmaceutical applications like cancer, cardiovascular disorders, bacterial infections, gene delivery etc. © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.