Research Progress in Liposome-in-natural Polymer Hydrogel Drug Delivery Systems

Hydrogel is a hydrophilic three-dimensional network. Compared with synthetic polymers, natural polymers such as chitosan, hyaluronic acid, sodium alginate are biocompatible and biodegradable and are more suitable as hydrogel matrices. Liposomes are vesicles formed by a lipid bilayer. Liposome-in-hydrogel drug delivery systems not only maintain the characteristics of liposomes in providing sustained, controlled and stimuli-responsive drug release but also improve the stability of liposome by the hydrogel barrier. These systems can be designed for oral administration, injection and local transdermal administration, with wide application in drug delivery systems and tissue engineering. This review covers a variety of hydrogel systems made of natural polymer materials that contain drug-loaded liposomes, niosomes and so on, which is valuable for developing novel sustained and controlled release formulations, improving permeability and bioavailability of water-soluble drugs, and researching intelligent stimuli-responsive drug delivery systems.