Sialic Acid as a potential approach for the protection and targeting of nanocarriers

IntroductionNanocarriers are considered as the most innovative drug delivery systems, due to their high potential in drug protection, delivery and mainly targeting to the diseased site; unfortunately, their applicability is mainly hampered by their uptake due to macrophagic recognition and lack of specificity if not properly engineered. Areas coveredSialic acid (SA) and its derivatives was deeply studied in order to govern the stealthness of carriers or, more recently, to act as targeting moiety. In this review, we summarized the most outstanding researches (in vitro and in vivo) dealing with the use of SAs or derivatives to modify the carriers surface in order to achieve targeted or stealth nanosystems. Moreover, we also consider the application of SA or derivatives as modifiers used for cancer targeting and therapy and for recognition purposes.Expert OpinionThe application of SA-based strategy for nanocarriers engineering represents one of the most stimulating challenge in drug delivery and drug targeting. The in vivo and in vitro ouptuts on stealth or targeted nanocarriers, modified with different kinds of SAs or SA-derivative, highlighted the great potential of this approach, both evidencing the advantages (stealth properties, targeting ability, cancer inhibition, viral and inflammation recognition, brain targeting) and the possible disadvantages (i.e. presence of possible multi-target side effects outputs), suggesting further investigations on this strategy.