Albumin: A Versatile Drug Carrier

Albumin is a multifaceted, highly soluble, stable, non toxic, non poisonous, biocompatible and biodegradable plasma protein. Because of its versatile nature, it can be used for the delivery of the drugs, hormones, metals and fatty acids by binding to its specific binding sites. The structure, location, size, charge and hydrophobicity of these drug binding sites are very important to optimize the interaction of drugs with albumin. These findings can be a useful device for the analysis and estimation of drug–drug and drug-carrier interactions or protein binding in various diseased states. Various studies reveled that albumin can be used to increase the circulating half-life and bioavailability of drug molecules which are smaller than the renal filtration threshold and are rapidly lost from the circulation leading to limiting therapeutic potential. This article presents a review of the special features of albumin as a drug carrier, and how the understanding of these features is currently being employed to optimize the circulatory half-life and bioavailability of drugs having the ability to bind/ conjugate/genetically fuse to albumin.