Grafted chitosan systems for biomedical applications

Abstract

Chitosan is one of the most abundant biopolymers obtained from the deacetylation of chitin. It has received considerable attention in recent years owing to its various beneficial pharmacological properties such as anti-acid properties, antitumour, hypocholesterolemic action, wound-healing properties, antiulcer properties, spermicidal activity and haemostatic properties. Most recently it has been used as the matrix for the drug delivery, gene delivery and tissue engineering applications. The application of chitosan in pharmaceutical industry has been extensively explored. However, pure chitosan has its limitations in its processability and reactivity. Poor water solubility is the major problem for utilizing the material in biomedical applications. To overcome this limitation, chitosan surface has been altered using physical interactions (inorganic composites and polyelectrolyte complexes) and chemical modification. Recently chitosan has been grafted with other molecules to get some desired properties such as controlled drug delivery, targeting specific tissues and enhanced antimicrobial efficacy. Moreover, the formation of grafted chitosan increases reactive functional groups which make them superior material for the complexation with other metals, metal oxides or materials like graphene and carbon nanotube. The grafted chitosan-based composites enhance their usage in pharmaceuticals over bare chitosan. This chapter highlights the need of grafted chitosan, synthesis techniques to get desired properties and their applications in biomedical field.