ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the roles of lipoproteins as delivery vehicles. It discusses the different lipoprotein types, their role in the human body, and their biomedical applications as delivery vehicles for contrast agents and drugs. Lipoproteins are an endogenous group of nanoparticles whose main role is the transport of fats between tissues. They are biocompatible, biodegradable and are naturally targeted to cell types of interest for imaging or drug delivery. Non-invasive medical imaging technologies, such as magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography, positron emission tomography, variants of mammography such as dual energy mammography and ultrasound are currently used in the clinic for the diagnosis of many diseases and conditions. Lipoproteins have been proposed as delivery vehicle for drugs, nucleic acids, and imaging probes. A few studies reported chylomicrons labeled with radioactive materials or gold nanoparticles; however, imaging experiments were not performed in those studies.
