Liposomas. Aplicaciones en terapia antimicrobiana y en inmunoprofilaxis

Liposomes are vesicles constituted by one or more bimolecular sheets of lipids allowing to carry substances either into the aquose intralamellar space, or included in the bicape. Attention has focused on liposomes because of their potential applications in drug delivery systems. The advantages could be summarised in these two properties, specificity to the target cells and lack of toxicity. More recently, however, methods to incorporate antigens into the liposomes have been developed, avoiding the toxicity of the classhavecal immunoadjuvants. The insight into the behaviour of these biodegradable colloidal systems in man is steadily growing. Because of this progress, we are going to describe in this review the potential contributions of liposomes to therapeutic and diagnostic fields, with an special attention to the methods of preparation and mechanisms of interaction with cells.