Importance of the field: The need for new products derived from natural sources for the replacement of the commonly used non-ionic surfactants containing ethylene oxide units with degradable carbohydrate headgroups has become an important area of research. Glycolipids offer a wide range of applications in the pharmaceutical and cosmetic fields and can compete with the most commonly used surfactants. Involved in molecular recognition mechanisms at the surface of cells, glycolipids are also used for drug targeting.
Areas covered in this review: The structure and pharmaceutical applications of the main glycolipid categories are summarized. The review focuses on marketed glycolipids, biosurfactants and compounds developed at laboratory scale for applications such as self-assembly or drug targeting.
What the reader will gain: This article aims to provide an overview of the different sugar-based surfactant classes and their potential uses.
Take home message: Beside their use as surfactants or absorption enhancers in basic formulations, glycolipids can build gels, niosomes, hexosomes and cubosomes, whose structure is directly related to lyotropic properties. These systems allow solubilization and entrapment of drugs. In innovative delivery systems, glycolipids are also used for drug targeting because their sugar moieties can be specifically recognized by carbohydrate-binding proteins exposed at the surface of cells.