Lipid-based Microtubes: A Promising Drug Carrier

Copyright: © 2013 Salerno C, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited Supramolecular assembly into tubular micro and nanostructures has been a field of much interest lately. Lipid-based microtubes are formed by self-assembly which makes the obtention of this type of structures very attractive. The fabrication process is simple and with low costs, hence they are promising micro and nanometric drug delivery systems for industrial scaling up. Molecules such as glycolipids, bola surfactants, phospholipids, and other amphiphiles, particularly molecules with chiral atoms are favoured for self-assembly. Micelles, rods, tubes and various types of related structures, can be obtained according to preparation conditions, mainly concentration, pH and temperature. Microtubes are bilayers packed from molecular association driven by non-covalent interactions such as van der Waals and electrostatic forces as well as hydrogen bonding and stacking through π-π interaction [1,2].