Abstract
Nanoparticles (NPs) have an outstanding position in pharmaceutical, biological, and medical disciplines. Polymeric NPs based on chitosan (CS) can act as excellent drug carriers because of some intrinsic beneficial properties including biocompatibility, biodegradability, non-toxicity, bioactivity, easy preparation, and targeting specificity. Drug transport and release from CS-based particulate systems depend on the extent of cross-linking, morphology, size, and density of the particulate system, as well as physicochemical properties of the drug. All these aspects have to be considered when developing new CS-based NPs as potential drug delivery systems. This comprehensive review is summarizing and discussing recent advances in CS-based NPs being developed and examined for drug delivery. From this point of view, an enhancement of CS properties by its modification is presented. An enhancement in drug delivery by CS NPs is discussed in detail focusing on (i) a brief summarization of basic characteristics of CS NPs, (ii) a categorization of preparation procedures used for CS NPs involving also recent improvements in production schemes of conventional as well as novel CS NPs, (iii) a categorization and evaluation of CS-based-nanocomposites involving their production schemes with organic polymers and inorganic material, and (iv) very recent implementations of CS NPs and nanocomposites in drug delivery.
Highlights
Chitosan (CS) is one of the most exploited polymers in biomedical science, and it is the second most abundant next to cellulose, a naturally occurring amino polysaccharide [1]
The recent review and research papers indicate Chitosan nanoparticles (CS NPs) play a vital role in biomedical applications such as drug/vaccine/gene delivery, bioimaging, wound healing, tissue engineering, etc
They highlighted an outstanding position of CS as a polysaccharide able to form NPs favorable for various drug delivery purposes because of its many beneficial properties, such as mucoadhesion, controlled drug release, transfection, permeation enhancement, in situ gelation, efflux pump inhibitory properties, and stimuli-responsive properties
Summary
Chitosan (CS) is one of the most exploited polymers in biomedical science, and it is the second most abundant next to cellulose, a naturally occurring amino polysaccharide [1]. It is produced from chitin (present in the exoskeleton of insects and marine aquatic animals, and microorganisms such as fungi, yeast, and microalgae) by partial deacetylation in an alkaline environment [2,3,4]. 6.5, which leads to significant protonation in neutral solutions. These basic parameters (i.e., MW, DD, pKa) determine chitosan properties and action in biological systems
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