Plant Derived Polymers, Properties, Modification & Applications
Abstract
Current polymeric research has explored various applications in drug delivery and its related biomedical applications. Natural polymers especially those are derived from plant sources has evidenced for growing interest and attention in biomedical and pharmaceuticals sectors. Owing to their relative abundance, low cost, and biodegradable and eco-friendly profiles, plant derived polysaccharides are more preferred over the synthetic polymers. Present work demonstrates the drug delivery applications of plant based polysaccharides especially in nanotechnology sector. Outstanding features of these polysaccharides attributed to its unique physico-chemical properties. These plants polymer based nanomaterials used or investigated as release retardant in sustained or controlled release drug delivery systems. Nanomaterials of these plant based polysaccharide exhibit high water content, functionality, biocompatibility, tunable size from submicrons to tens of nanometers, large surface area for multivalent bioconjugation, and interior network for the incorporation of therapeutics. These unique properties present great potential for the utilization of polysaccharide-based microgels/nanogels in tissue biomedical implants, engineering, bionanotechnology, and particularly, drug delivery.