Bioinert, Stealth or Interactive: How Surface Chemistry of Nanocarriers Determines Their Fate In Vivo

Nanocarriers (NCs) have emerged as powerful tools to improve drug solubility, promote transport across membranes, protect their payload from premature degradation, and deliver drugs in a controlled targeted manner. Their performance strongly depends on the surface chemistry, which governs interaction with biological environment. Bioinert stealth features are advantageous avoid unintended interactions endogenous surfaces at off-target sites immune system, whereas target site these carriers should be highly interactive guaranteeing intracellular delivery of payload. These key properties—bioinert versus site—are contradiction each other so that best compromise between them has found. Alternatively, structures interacting preferentially membrane cells can utilized. Stimuli-responsive able convert bioinert been recently introduced. A deepened understanding how different approaches influence NCs body is particular importance order efficacy. This review focuses chemistry providing features.