Applications of bacterial cellulose in food, cosmetics and drug delivery

Bacterial cellulose (BC) is a versatile biopolymer with better material properties, such as purity, high degree of porosity, relative high permeability to liquid and gases, high water-uptake capacity, tensile strength and ultrafine network. This review explores the applications of BC and its hydrogels in the fields of food, cosmetics and drug delivery. Applications of BC in foods are ranging from traditional dessert, low cholesterol diet, vegetarian meat, and as food additive and dietary aid to novel applications, such as immobilization of enzymes and cells. Applications in cosmetics include facial mask, facial scrub, personal cleansing formulations and contact lenses. BC for controlled drug delivery, transdermal drug delivery, dental drug delivery, protein delivery, tissue engineering drug delivery, macromolecular prodrug delivery and molecularly imprinted polymer based enantioselective drug delivery are also discussed in this review. The applications of BC in food and cosmetics provide the basis for BC-based functional foods, nutraceuticals, cosmeceuticals and medicated cosmetics. On the basis of current studies, the BC-based drug delivery could be further fine-tuned to get more sophisticated control on stimuli-responsive drug release. Along with the currently available literature, further experiments are required to obtain a blueprint of drug in vivo performance, bioavailability and in vitro-in vivo correlation.