Abstract

Background: Vaginal drug delivery offers an opportunity for effective microbicide treatments. However, the physiological characteristics of the vagina represent a challenge when preparing microbicide formulations for local delivery that avoid systemic effects.

Objective: To review recent advances in vaginal microbicides placing special emphasis on nanocarriers that encapsulate peptide microbicides. The review includes an overview of local treatment and prevention strategies for bactericidal, fungal, protozoal and viral vaginal infections that use peptide microbicides.

Methods: Scientific literature and clinical trials published in the PubMed database since 2015 are analyzed.

Result: Peptide microbicides are used for vaginal drug delivery as a means of prevention and treatment of several infectious diseases, especially sexually transmitted infections, and it is clear that such peptide-based microbicides constitute a suitable strategy. Their combination with nanotechnological drug delivery systems improves local peptide administration while avoiding their degradation and adverse effects. To date, only a few polymeric and lipid-based nanocarriers have been used for peptide microbicide vaginal delivery.

Conclusion: The combination of nanotechnology and peptide microbicides has emerged over recent years, and different platforms are being used for vaginal peptide delivery. Nanostructured systems for peptide delivery via vaginal rings or hydrogels are increasingly used as platforms capable of providing suitable drug delivery. However, there is still a lack of knowledge about nanocarriers aimed at encapsulating peptides for local microbicide delivery.

Keywords: Vaginal microbicides, antimicrobial peptides, nanoparticles, vaginal drug delivery, polymeric nanoparticles, lipid vesicles, Sexually transmitted infections, STD.