School of Biological Sciences and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Biomaterials and Devices, Nanjing 210096, China
Combining with pharmacy, biology, biomedical engineering, materials science and other disciplines, microbubbles ultrasound contrast agents have the functions of enhanced ultrasound imaging and drug loading. So far microbubbles are moving towards to achieve the aim of tissue targeted molecular imaging and combined with multimodality imaging and other imaging mode, as well as unite drugs or genes. Pulmonary surfactant (PS) is a kind of lipid protein complex, located on the alveolar gas-liquid interface and mainly consisting of phospholipids and specific proteins. The function of PS is to reduce the surface tension of lung, realize the innate immunity and protect the invasion of pathogens. Microbubbles coated and stabilized by PS have been a topic of interest as a novel drug delivery system with ultrasound imaging and therapeutic functions. In the paper, the application of microbubbles in the fields of medical diagnosis and treatment is elaborated, the research process on PS microbubbles is introduced, and the prospects of application and development to PS microbubbles are also discussed.