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“The author regrets that in the above article an error occurred with the affiliation. The corrected affiliation of the authors is as follows: Jin Lia,b, Pan Liua, Jian-Ping Liua,∗, Ji-Kun Yanga, Wen-Li Zhanga, Yong-Qing Fana, Shu-Ling Kana, Yan Cuia, Wen-Jing Zhanga aDepartment of Pharmaceutics, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, PR China bDepartment of Pharmacy, Xuzhou Medical College, Xuzhou, PR China Corresponding author. Department of Pharmaceutics, China Pharmaceutical University, No. 24 Tong jia xiang, Nanjing, PR China. Tel./fax: +86 25 83271293. E-mail address: [email protected] (J.-P. Liu)

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“Transdermal delivery of drugs with unfavorable skin absorption using microneedle (MN) array technology has the potential of bringing to clinical practice more effective and safer products [1], [2] and [3]. By penetrating OSI-744 price the skin in a minimally-invasive manner, native or drug-loaded MNs create microchannels in the stratum corneum (SC) and epidermis as in-skin pathways for drug diffusion. This permits an increase in several orders of magnitude in the passage or dermal targeting of drugs ranging from small hydrophilic molecules such as alendronate [4] to macromolecules, including low molecular weight heparins

[5] insulin [6] and vaccines [7] and [8]. While MN-mediated transdermal drug delivery has been extensively investigated, the use of MN technology for transdermal delivery of drug-loaded nanocarriers is novel [9], [10] and [11]. EPZ-6438 An optimized MN/drug-loaded nanocarrier transdermal delivery approach may allow modulation of the absorption of the drug of interest [10]. For example, polymeric nanoparticles (NPs) offer a wide range of benefits including in-skin drug targeting, control of skin permeation, Carnitine palmitoyltransferase II protection

of the encapsulated drug from degradation in the biological milieu in addition to reduced dose, and side effects [12]. Drug release from NPs can be modulated by selectively modifying factors associated with shape, size, chemical composition, internal morphology, surface charge, and use of combined enhancing strategies [13], [14] and [15]. Without the use of physical methods of skin permeation, the literature reports suggest that in most instances, polymeric NPs penetrate the SC poorly [16] and [17] following passive routes of permeation through the hair follicles where the drug is released and transported to deeper skin layers [18] and [19]. Intuitively, delivering NPs beyond the SC with the simultaneous creation of additional larger and denser in-skin pathways would promote translocation of NPs as drug-rich reservoirs deeper into the skin.