Chitin and Chitosan: Sustainable, Medically Relevant Biomaterials (original) (raw)
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Biomedical Engineering, Trends in Materials Science, 2011
estimated that 10 10-10 12 tons of chitin are biosynthesized each year (Percot et al., 2003). Unlike chitin, chitosan is produced only by some fungi from the family Mucoraceae (Roberts, 1998). Industrially, chitosan is usually produced by deN -acetylation of chitin. The various industrial sources of chitin (- ,-and-chitin) (Roberts, 1992; Tolaimate et al., 2003; Synowiecki & Al-Khateeb, 2003), as well as the processes and conditions under which this polymer is prepared (
Chitin and Chitosan Derivatives as Biomaterial Resources for Biological and Biomedical Applications
Molecules, 2020
Chitin is a long-chain polymer of N-acetyl-glucosamine, which is regularly found in the exoskeleton of arthropods including insects, shellfish and the cell wall of fungi. It has been known that chitin can be used for biological and biomedical applications, especially as a biomaterial for tissue repairing, encapsulating drug for drug delivery. However, chitin has been postulated as an inducer of proinflammatory cytokines and certain diseases including asthma. Likewise, chitosan, a long-chain polymer of N-acetyl-glucosamine and d-glucosamine derived from chitin deacetylation, and chitosan oligosaccharide, a short chain polymer, have been known for their potential therapeutic effects, including anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antidiarrheal, and anti-Alzheimer effects. This review summarizes potential utilization and limitation of chitin, chitosan and chitosan oligosaccharide in a variety of diseases. Furthermore, future direction of research and development of chitin, chitosan, and chi...
Pharmaceutical Uses of Chitosan in the Medical Field
European Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies
Two of the considerably versatile and promising biomaterials are chitin and chitosan. Chitin is known to be the most abundant natural amino mucopolysaccharide, produced annually almost as much as cellulose, and it is found in the structure of a wide number of intervertebrates ( crustaceans’ exoskeleton, insects’ cuticles) functioning as a structural component that provides strenght and protection to the organisms, and the cell walls of fungi, among others. On the other hand, chitosan only occurs naturally in some fungi (mucoraceae). The composition of chitin is based on ?(1à4)-linked 2-acetamido-2-deoxy-?-D-glucose (N-acetylglucosamine). Due to their natural origin, both chitin and chitosan are defined as a family of polymers which present a high variability in their chemical and biological properties such as biocompatibility, biodegradability, mucoadhesion, anticholesterolemic, antitumoral, hemostatic and antimicrobial effect. These characteristics of chitin and chitosan have a maj...
Chitin and Chitosan: Production and Application of Versatile Biomedical Nanomaterials.
Chitin is the most abundant aminopolysaccharide polymer occurring in nature, and is the building material that gives strength to the exoskeletons of crustaceans, insects, and the cell walls of fungi. Through enzymatic or chemical deacetylation, chitin can be converted to its most well-known derivative, chitosan. The main natural sources of chitin are shrimp and crab shells, which are an abundant byproduct of the food-processing industry, that provides large quantities of this biopolymer to be used in biomedical applications. In living chitin-synthesizing organisms, the synthesis and degradation of chitin require strict enzymatic control to maintain homeostasis. Chitin synthase, the pivotal enzyme in the chitin synthesis pathway, uses UDP-N-acetylglucosamine (UDPGlcNAc), produce the chitin polymer, whereas, chitinase enzymes degrade chitin. Bacteria are considered as the major mediators of chitin degradation in nature. Chitin and chitosan, owing to their unique biochemical properties such as biocompatibility, biodegradability, non-toxicity, ability to form films, etc, have found many promising biomedical applications. Nanotechnology has also increasingly applied chitin and chitosan-based materials in its most recent achievements. Chitin and chitosan have been widely employed to fabricate polymer scaffolds. Moreover, the use of chitosan to produce designed-nanocarriers and to enable microencapsulation techniques is under increasing investigation for the delivery of drugs, biologics and vaccines. Each application is likely to require uniquely designed chitosan-based nano/micro-particles with specific dimensions and cargo-release characteristics. The ability to reproducibly manufacture chitosan nano/microparticles that can encapsulate protein cargos with high loading efficiencies remains a challenge. Chitosan can be successfully used in solution, as hydrogels and/or nano/microparticles, and (with different degrees of deacetylation) an endless array of derivatives with customized biochemical properties can be prepared. As a result, chitosan is one of the most well-studied biomaterials. The purpose of this review is to survey the biosynthesis and isolation, and summarize nanotechnology applications of chitin and chitosan ranging from tissue engineering, wound dressings, antimicrobial agents, antiaging cosmetics, and vaccine adjuvants.
Chitosan: An Update on Potential Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Applications
Marine Drugs, 2015
Chitosan is a natural polycationic linear polysaccharide derived from chitin. The low solubility of chitosan in neutral and alkaline solution limits its application. Nevertheless, chemical modification into composites or hydrogels brings to it new functional properties for different applications. Chitosans are recognized as versatile biomaterials because of their non-toxicity, low allergenicity, biocompatibility and biodegradability. This review presents the recent research, trends and prospects in chitosan. Some special pharmaceutical and biomedical applications are also highlighted.
The physicochemical nature of chitin and chitosan, which influences the biomedical activity of these compounds, is strongly related to the source of chitin and the conditions of the chitin/chitosan production process. Apart from widely described key factors such as weight-averaged molecular weight (M W ) and degree of N-acetylation (DA), other physicochemical parameters like polydispersity (M W /M N ), crystallinity or the pattern of acetylation (P A ) have to be taken into consideration. From the biological point of view, these parameters affect a very important factor-the solubility of chitin and chitosan in water and organic solvents. The physicochemical properties of chitosan solutions can be controlled by manipulating solution conditions (temperature, pH, ionic strength, concentration, solvent). The degree of substitution of the hydroxyl and the amino groups or the degree of quaternization of the amino groups also influence the mechanical and biological properties of chitosan samples. Finally, a considerable research effort has been directed towards developing safe and efficient chitin/chitosan-based products because many factors, like the size of nanoparticles, can determine the biomedical characteristics of medicinal products. The influence of these factors on the biomedical activity of chitin/chitosan-based products is presented in this report in more detail. OPEN ACCESS Polymers 2011, 3 1876
Chitin and chitosan: Properties and applications
Progress in Polymer Science, 2006
Chitin is the second most important natural polymer in the world. The main sources exploited are two marine crustaceans, shrimp and crabs. Our objective is to appraise the state of the art concerning this polysaccharide: its morphology in the native solid state, methods of identification and characterization and chemical modifications, as well as the difficulties in utilizing and processing it for selected applications. We note the important work of P. Austin, S. Tokura and S. Hirano, who have contributed to the applications development of chitin, especially in fiber form. Then, we discuss chitosan, the most important derivative of chitin, outlining the best techniques to characterize it and the main problems encountered in its utilization. Chitosan, which is soluble in acidic aqueous media, is used in many applications (food, cosmetics, biomedical and pharmaceutical applications). We briefly describe the chemical modifications of chitosan-an area in which a variety of syntheses have been proposed tentatively, but are not yet developed on an industrial scale. This review emphasizes recent papers on the high value-added applications of these materials in medicine and cosmetics.
European Chemical Bulletin (ECB), 2023
Chitosan, a biomaterial, has shown potential in developing innovative drug delivery systems (NDDS) and has various biomedical uses. Chitosan is a polysaccharide originating from chitin and is both biocompatible and biodegradable. A biopolymer known as chitosan is extracted from chitin, which is a natural polymer present in the exoskeleton of crustaceans like lobster, shrimp, and crab, as well as in the cell walls of fungi. In the past few years, there has been significant research conducted on Chitosan due to its vast range of possible uses in fields such as agriculture, cosmetics, food, and medicine. The various innovative drug transportation techniques utilizing chitosan have been developed for a range of routes including topical, oral, ophthalmic, transdermal, and nasal administration methods. Chitosan has the capability to create hydrogels when exposed to alterations in pH or ionic strength. This review article provides the sourcing or origin of chitosan, including the biomedical activities of chitosan. Chitosan plays role in various applications in innovative drug delivery systems including advance drug delivery systems, TDDs and Nasal drug delivery as well as included bone regeneration and wound healing. Lastly, the crucial role of chitosan derived from chitin extensive operations in vaccination and cosmetics products.
Chitin and chitosan: Chemistry, properties and applications
Chitin and chitosan are considerably versatile and promising biomaterials. The deacetylated chitin derivative, chitosan is more useful and interesting bioactive polymer. Despite its biodegradability, it has many reactive amino side groups, which offer possibilities of chemical modifications, formation of a large variety of useful derivatives that are commercially available or can be made available via graft reactions and ionic interactions. This study looks at the contemporary research in chitin and chitosan towards applications in various industrial and biomedical fields.
Applications of Chitosan in the Field of Medicine
Journal of Molecular and Genetic Medicine, 2021
Chitosan has special physicochemical properties such as short-term biodegradability, biocompatibility with human tissues, antibacterial and antifungal activity and non-toxicity, so it has high potential in various industries. In addition, biological properties such as bioadhesion, anticancer, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory and analgesic, antioxidant, blood coagulant and cholesterol-lowering distinguish it from other biological polymers. It has been used as a safe compound in drug formulations for more than a decade. Different samples of chitosan can be prepared with different molecular weights as well as different degrees of deacetylation. In this way, it took advantage of the multi-stage de-acetylation process. In this case, the reaction temperature, reaction time and number of reaction steps are considered as effective parameters. Molecular weight and percentage of deacetylation play a decisive role in the biological properties of chitin, chitosan and their derivatives. So far, various derivatives of chitin and chitosan have been obtained. By manipulating the extraction steps (removing mineral and protein compounds), higher purity derivatives can be prepared. In other words, changes in the structural properties of the material are very effective on the final characteristics of the product.