Current Research And Developments On Chitin And Chitosan In Biomaterials Science PDF Download

Chitin, poly (ß-(1?4)-N-acetyl-d-glucosamine), is a natural polysaccharide of major importance, first identified in 1884. It is the second most abundant natural polymer after cellulose and exists largely in the marine crustacean. Chitin occurs in nature as ordered crystalline microfibrils forming structural components in the exoskeleton of arthropods or in the cell walls of fungi and yeast. The most important derivative of chitin is chitosan, which is obtained by partial N-deacetylation of chitin in the solid state under alkaline conditions (concentrated NaOH) or by enzymatic hydrolysis in the presence of a chitin deacetylase. Because of the semicrystalline morphology of chitin, chitosans obtained by an alkaline reaction have a heterogeneous distribution of acetyl groups along the chains. Studies on chitin and chitosan have been intensified since 1990 because these polysaccharides show excellent biological properties such as biodegradation in the human body, and immunological, antibacterial, and wound-healing activity. In recent studies, especially, chitosan has been found to be a good candidate as a support material for gene delivery, cell culture, and tissue engineering. Therefore, chitin and chitosan are receiving greater attention as novel functional materials. Despite their interesting biological properties, utilization has been scarcely developed. This review book is a comprehensive introduction to the bioscience and biomedical applications of chitin and chitosan. This review book covers the synthesis and biological properties of chitin and chitosan derivatives and their applications in drug delivery, medical and biological fields. This review book also covers almost all the important findings in these fields and explored these results clearly. The main importance of this review book is to know the chemical and biological properties of chitin and chitosan. These broad ranges of topics that are systematically discussed in this review book will be helpful to carry out more innovative researches in chitin and chitosan in the near future. This review book contains seven chapters included with the various topics of current research interest. Chapter 1 is focusing various methods of preparation of water soluble derivatives of chitin and chitosan. Moreover, the potential applications of these derivatives in the various fields such as drug delivery, food, cosmetics, tissue engineering and environmental is also discussed. In Chapter 2 are reviews the various methods of synthesis, properties of the chemically modified chitosans and their applications of the chemically modified chitosans derivatives for controlled drug and non-viral gene delivery. The knowledge of chitosan scaffold preparation and their characterization and biological activities, which are reported in recent literatures, are discussed in Chapter 3. The Chapter 4, the developments of chitin and chitosan interfaces for the applications in biosensors, microarray, cell arrays, micro fluidic devices and bioimaging are focused. The recent research and development of chitin/chitosan based biomaterials for potential application in orthopedic or bone and cartilage tissue engineering is reviewed in the Chapter 5. The chapter 6 is focusing on the various types of chitosan derivatives and their use in various tissue engineering applications namely, skin, bone, cartilage, liver, nerve and blood vessel. In chapter 7 is focusing about the production and properties of chitin and chitosan obtained from crustacean and fungal sources and their applications in medical and biological sectors are discussed. This review book explains that the advantage of chitin and chitosan over the other polysaccharides. As described in this review, the chemical structure of chitin and chitosan allows specific modifications at their reactive sites, without changing the bulk properties. Specific groups can be introduced into their reactive sites to design polymers for selected applications. Since the biological properties of chitin and chitosan are valuable for medical applications, the developments in these filed can be considered as valuable extensions of the use of chitin and its derivatives. I expect that this review book will be helpful to the people, who are interesting in chitin and chitosan research. I warmly thank the authors for their efforts in producing such informed and enlightening exposition on these topics in chitin and chitosan. Finally, I acknowledge the staff of Research Signpost (India) for their patience and assistance.