Abstract

The complicated physiology of tumors has always attracted pharmaceutical scientists to design a delivery system that can shoot to kill it specifically. A number of supramolecular systems, each with their pros and cons have been developed to treat the cancerous growth. The success rate of site-specific supramolecular carriers have urged scientists to direct their focus towards biovectors for drug delivery. Biovectors are intrinsic nutrient carrier systems of the body such as lipoproteins. Their uniqueness lies in the fact that they circulate in the blood for extremely long period and rapidly dividing cancer cells take them specifically in the need for cholesterol. Scientists have successfully modified lipoproteins as neo-lipoproteins for the delivery of anticancer agents. Recently they have developed lipoprotein mimicking artificial carrier systems for the same purpose. This article reviews natural and various other types of semi-synthetic or synthetic lipoprotein mimicking biovectorized systems developed in recent years.