Nanoparticles prepared using human serum albumin (HSA) have emerged as versatile carriers for improving the pharmacokinetic profile of drugs. The desolvation of HSA using ethanol followed by stabilization through crosslinking with glutaraldehyde is a common technique for preparing HSA nanoparticles, but our knowledge concerning the characteristics (or functions) of HSA nanoparticles and their e...

Site-directed mutagenesis of human serum albumin was used to study the role of various amino acid residues in bilirubin binding. A comparison of thermodynamic, proteolytic, and x-ray crystallographic data from previous studies allowed a small number of amino acid residues in subdomain 2A to be selected as targets for substitution. The following recombinant human serum albumin species were synth...

1 1 GENERAL INTRODUCTION 3 1.1 Endothelial related diseases 3 1.2 siRNA and the principle of RNA interference 8 1.3 RNA interference in research and therapy 13 1.4 Viral and non-viral gene delivery 14 1.5 Nanoparticles: definitions, history and current state of knowledge 16 1.6 Gelatin based nanoparticles as colloidal drug delivery vectors 18 1.7 Body distribution of nanoparticles 19 1.8 Nanopa...

Serum albumin is the major determinant of blood colloidal osmotic pressure acting as a depot and distributor of compounds including drugs. In humans, serum albumin exhibits an unusually long half-life mainly due to protection from catabolism by neonatal Fc receptor (FcRn)-mediated recycling. These properties make albumin an attractive courier of therapeutically-active compounds. However, pharma...