Transfersome

Transfersome is a trademark registered by the German company IDEA AG, which refers to its drug delivery technology. The name means “carrying body” and is derived from the Latin word 'transferre', meaning 'to carry across', and the Greek word 'soma', meaning 'a body'. A Transfersome carrier is an artificial vesicle designed to exhibit the characteristics of a cell vesicle or a cell engaged in exocytosis, and thus suitable for controlled and, potentially, targeted drug delivery.

The term Transfersome and the underlying concept were introduced in 1991 by Gregor Cevc. Numerous groups have since been working with similar carriers, frequently using different names (e.g., elastic vesicle, flexible vesicle, Ethosome, etc.) to describe them.

In a broader sense, a Transfersome is a highly adaptable, stress-responsive complex aggregate. The form preferred by researchers and pharmacologists is an ultradeformable vesicle possessing an aqueous core surrounded by the complex lipid bilayer. Interdependencies inherent in the local composition and shape of the bilayer makes the vesicle both self-regulating and self-optimizing. This enables the Transfersome to cross various transport barriers efficiently, and then act as a Drug carrier for non-invasive targeted drug delivery and sustained release of therapeutic agents.

The carrier aggregate is composed of at least one amphiphat (such as phosphatidylcholine), which in aqueous solvents self-assembles into a lipid bilayer that closes into a simple lipid vesicle. By addition of at least one bilayer softening component (such as a biocompatible surfactant or an amphiphile drug) lipid bilayer flexibility and permeability are greatly increased. The resulting Transfersome is optimized for flexibility and permeability, and can therefore adapt its shape to ambient conditions easily and rapidly by adjusting local concentration of each bilayer component to the local stress experienced at the bilayer. Since its basic organization is broadly similar to a liposome, a Transfersome differs from more conventional vesicles primarily by its "softer", more deformable, and better adjustable artificial membrane.

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