Cell membrane-based biomimetic vehicles for effective central nervous system target delivery: Insights and challenges

Central nervous system (CNS) disorders, including brain tumor, ischemic stroke, Alzheimer's disease, and Parkinson's disease, threaten human health. And the existence of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) hinders the delivery of drugs and the design of drug targeting delivery vehicles. Over the past decades, great interest has been given to cell membrane-based biomimetic vehicles since the rise of targeting drug delivery systems and biomimetic nanotechnology. Cell membranes are regarded as natural multifunction biomaterials, and provide potential for targeting delivery design and modification. Cell membrane-based biomimetic vehicles appear timely with the participation of cell membranes and nanoparticles, and raises new lights for BBB recognition and transport, and effective therapy with its biological multifunction and high biocompatibility. This review summarizes existing challenges in CNS target delivery and recent advances of different kinds of cell membrane-based biomimetic vehicles for effective CNS target delivery, and deliberates the BBB targeting mechanism. It also discusses the challenges and possibility of clinical translation, and presents new insights for development. Blood-brain barrier target of cell membrane-based biomimetic vehicles. The injured brain microvascular endothelial cells (BMECs) specific recognized the cell membrane-based biomimetic vehicles with the receptor/ligand interaction. A membrane-bound intracellular transport vesicle is formed as a result of the receptor-mediated endocytosis, which is accompanied by invagination of the BMEC membrane around the cell membrane-based biomimetic vehicles-receptor complex cluster and wrapping of this cluster. The cell membrane-based biomimetic vehicles travel through the plasm of the injured BMECs and transport from vessel lumen site to brain tissue [Display omitted]