Red Blood Cell Hitchhiking: A Novel Approach for Vascular Delivery of Nanocarriers

Red blood cell (RBC) hitchhiking is a method of drug delivery that can increase drug concentration in target organs by orders of magnitude. In RBC hitchhiking, drug-loaded nanoparticles (NPs) are adsorbed onto red blood cells and then injected intravascularly, which causes the NPs to transfer to cells of the capillaries in the downstream organ. RBC hitchhiking has been demonstrated in multiple species and multiple organs. For example, RBC-hitchhiking NPs localized at unprecedented levels in the brain when using intra-arterial catheters, such as those in place immediately after mechanical thrombectomy for acute ischemic stroke. RBC hitchhiking has been successfully employed in numerous preclinical models of disease, ranging from pulmonary embolism to cancer metastasis. In addition to summarizing the versatility of RBC hitchhiking, we also describe studies into the surprisingly complex mechanisms of RBC hitchhiking as well as outline future studies to further improve RBC hitchhiking's clinical utility.