Journal
PHARMACEUTICS
Volume 13, Issue 11, Pages -Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/pharmaceutics13111876
Keywords
thermoresponsive polymers; reproducibility; chitosan; drug delivery; smart drug delivery systems; poly-N-vinyl caprolactam
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Funding
- Italian Ministry of Health
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Chitosan is a natural polysaccharide with biocompatible properties, and has been combined with thermoresponsive polymers for drug delivery applications. This combination offers potential in biomedical applications due to the biodegradability and temperature responsiveness of the polymers.
Chitosan is a natural polysaccharide that is considered to be biocompatible, biodegradable and non-toxic. The polymer has been used in drug delivery applications for its positive charge, which allows for adhesion with and recognition of biological tissues via non-covalent interactions. In recent times, chitosan has been used for the preparation of graft copolymers with thermoresponsive polymers such as poly-N-vinylcaprolactam (PNVCL) and poly-N-isopropylamide (PNIPAM), allowing the combination of the biodegradability of the natural polymer with the ability to respond to changes in temperature. Due to the growing interest in the utilization of thermoresponsive polymers in the biological context, it is necessary to increase the knowledge of the key principles of thermoresponsivity in order to obtain comparable results between different studies or applications. In the present review, we provide an overview of the basic principles of thermoresponsivity, as well as a description of the main polysaccharides and thermoresponsive materials, with a special focus on chitosan and poly-N-Vinyl caprolactam (PNVCL) and their biomedical applications.
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