Nanocarriers Properties Function Application for respiratory disorder Liposomal Delivered in liquid and dry powder form. Cationic Liposome is also used for gene delivery. Increase the cellular uptake of drug due to presence of several cells penetrating peptide. Respiratory distress syndrome [48,49]. Polymeric Composed of biodegradable or biocompatible materials such as poly lactic acid, alginic acid, gelatin and chitosan. Presence of biocompatible component result in prolonged release of drugs This nano carriers are used in several pulmonary drugs such as asthma, tuberculosis, pulmonary hypertension etc.[5,26]. Solid Lipid nanoparticles These nanocarriers are composed of solid lipids, surfactants and water. Solid lipid nano carriers are more accepted for drug delivery due to its less or almost no cytotoxic effect than the polymer based carrier. More tolerable to lungs and major advantages of solid lipid nano particles are the control release of drugs with rapid in vivo degradation. Mainly used for lung cancer and vaccine Delivery [50,51]. Submicron emulsions The stable submicron emulsions are promising carriers for DNA vaccines to the lung compare to the commercially available liposomes. The emulsion system are able to transfect pulmonary epithelial cells, which directly activate dendritic cells, resulting in stimulation of antigen-specific T-cells The submicron emulsions are used as promising carrier for DNA vaccines (e.g. Mycobacterium tuberculosis) for the pulmonary mucosal Vaccination [52,53].

Table 1: Summarizes the chemical properties and function of some of the widely used nano-carriers used to develop nano-medicine for specific respiratory disorders.