Regenerative medicine polysaccharides

Electrospinning techniques enable the production of continuous fibers with dimensions on the scale of nanometers from a wide range of natural and synthetic polymers [135]. The number of recent studies regarding electrospun polysaccharides and their derivatives, which are potentially useful for regenerative medicine, is dramatically increasing. 

The major natural polymers currently in use are proteins and polysaccharides. Due to diverse physical and chemical properties, natural polymers play a key role in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. In the following section, we describe some frequently used protein polymers for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications. 

Chitosan is one of the widely used biomaterials and has gained considerable attention in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications in recent decades. The importance comes from its biocompatibility, biodegradability and easy availability, as well as the possibility to be prepared in various forms such as films, membranes, nanoparticles, fibers, hydrogels and scaffolds. Chitosan is a linear polysaccharide and is obtained... 

Cationic Polysaccharides in Regenerative Medicine Challenges and Perspectives... 

Besides the naturally occurring cationic PS chitin and chitosan, a huge variety of semi-synthetic products is available, which are based on anchoring cationic groups onto the polysaccharide backbone. Examples include cationic starch and cationic cellulose derivatives, which are widely used for industrial purposes (cationic starch in paper ) and also in medical applications (cationic cellulose as additives, e.g. JR-400 and Quatrisoft LM-200 in hygienic products). However, applications in regenerative medicine are rather poorly developed for these materials and therefore a discussion is excluded at this point. 

In regenerative medicine, there are various different materials suitable as implantable scaffolds. These can be fabricated from natural or synthetic materials. Common examples are polysaccharides (eg, chitosan), or polyesters (eg, poly e-caprolactone), for natural and synthetic polymers, respectively. However, they are both capable of degradation (either enzyme mediated, or hydrolysis) in vivo (Bassi et al., 2011 Cunha-Reis et al., 2007). Often, polyesters are used as implantable biodegradable biomaterials, as they have controllable degradation and mechanical properties through formation of block copolymers. Where degradation occurs, the scaffolds... 

Polysaccharides include cellulose, alginate, hyaluronic acid, starches, dextran, heparin, chitin, and chitosan, and many of these have been used in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine (Lee et al. 

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