NANOSTRUCTURED LIPID CARRIERS: THE ADVANCED LIPID CARRIERS AND THEIR APPLICATIONS

Nanostructured Lipid Carriers (NLCs) is a novel type of drug-delivery system. They are binary system which is stable in a different environment. Nanostructured Lipid Carrier (NLC) comprises a blend of solid and liquid lipids as a core matrix. NLCs have aggravated the incessant impulsion for developing safe and valuable drug delivery systems due to their exceptional physicochemical and biocompatible characteristics. Additional utilization NLCs is crucial because of overcoming barriers enclosed by the technological procedure of lipid-based nanocarriers’ formulation and raised data on the core mechanisms of their transport via numerous routes of administration. NLC it can be easily used as a carrier for drugs via different routes of administration such as oral, parenteral, ocular, and nasal. Nanostructured lipid carriers (NLCs) have been reported to be an alternative system and are considered superior to many other traditional lipid-based nanocarriers such as emulsions, nanoemulsion, liposome, microparticle, and solid lipid nanoparticle (SLNs). It imparts many advantages over SLN’s such as increased solubility and stability, improved permeability and bioavailability, enhanced drug loading capacity, drug release modulation flexibility, reduced adverse effects, prolonged half-life, and tissue-targeted delivery. This review highlights the NLC with a focus on the structure, preparation methods, characterization of NLCs, formulations, pharmaceutical and therapeutic applications towards targeted drug delivery of NLC in delivery systems.