Usually, only a small fraction of the nanoparticles injection dose (<0.7%) reaches the target (Schmidt and Storsberg, 2015). The tight control of mixing and separation of particles is crucial to obtain a homogeneous nanoparticle suspension (Cosco et al., 2015b). It is often technically challenging to obtain reproducible suspensions of nanoparticles with low polydispersion and desired shape and size. Nanoparticle formulation requires full characterization of its size, surface charge, shape, and distribution (Oberdörster, 2010). At the same time, the use of nanoparticles in drug development reduces the usage of additional components on the formulation to protect therapeutics from degradation and increase circulation time. The use of nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems has increased due to their controlled release of reservoir content, leading to a decrease in undesirable side effects (Cosco et al., 2011 Mahmoodi et al., 2016 Jurj et al., 2017 Panahi et al., 2017 Singh et al., 2017). Nanoparticles can be made of different materials, organic or inorganic, such as metal, polymers, carbon nanotubes, and liposomes (Liu et al., 2016). In the last decade, their applicability has been focused on the biomedical and pharmaceutical fields, used as drug delivery systems, diagnostic tools, and implants (Zhang, 2015 Geszke-Moritz and Moritz, 2016 Alegret et al., 2017 Jurj et al., 2017 Ramos et al., 2017 Wong et al., 2017). Nanoparticles (NPs) have been developed to overcome the problems of targeting and efficiency, with reduced toxicity. The concern about the bioavailability and efficacy of conventional therapeutics by their suboptimal results on targeted cells and high toxicity in normal cells have lead the scientific community to reshape the vision of drug development (Geszke-Moritz and Moritz, 2016). Nanotechnology research and development have increased over the last three decades. In this review, we focus on nanoparticle characterization and application in infection, cancer and cardiovascular diseases. Zeta-potential is used to characterize nanoparticles surface charge, obtaining information about their stability and surface interaction with other molecules. Dynamic light scattering is used to measure nanoparticles size, but also to evaluate their stability over time in suspension, at different pH and temperature conditions. In this review, we cover light scattering based techniques, namely dynamic light scattering and zeta-potential, used for the physicochemical characterization of nanoparticles. These properties need to be optimized considering the final nanoparticle intended biodistribution and target. In order to be effectively used, the physicochemical properties of nanoparticle formulations need to be taken into account, namely, particle size, surface charge distribution, surface derivatization and/or loading capacity, and related interactions. The wide range of nanoparticles size, from 10 nm to 1 μm, as well as their optical properties, allow them to be studied using microscopy and spectroscopy techniques. The high stability and biocompatibility, together with the low toxicity of the nanoparticles developed lead to their use as targeted drug delivery systems, bioimaging systems, and biosensors. Over the years, the scientific importance of nanoparticles for biomedical applications has increased.
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