Chitosan

Chitosan is a product made from chitin. A type of starch found in the skeleton of crustaceans. It is a natural polysachharide and is being widely used as an excipient in pharmaceutical preparations (A. K. Singla et al.). (RINAUDO Marguerite et al.) Chitosan is derived from Chitin.

Properties:
(RINAUDO Marguerite et al.) Chitosan is soluble in acidic aqeous media. (Alberto Di Martino et al.)Its gelling properties make it suitable for pharmaceutical agents in a controlled fashion. Due to its cationic nature it is favourable to be used in orthpaedic tissue engineering. (Shirui Mao et al.)Chitosan having molecular weights which is large are more prone to depolymerization as it depends on the molecular weight.

References:
Alberto Di Martino, Michael Sittinger and Makarand V. Risbud. Chitosan: A versatile biopolymer for orthopaedic tissue-engineering. Journal of Biomaterials, Volume 26, Issue 30, October 2005, Pages 5983-5990

A. K. Singla, M. Chawla. Chitosan: some pharmaceutical and biological aspects–an update. Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology , Volume 53, Number 8, 1 August 2001 , pp. 1047-1067(21)

RINAUDO Marguerite. Chitin and chitosan : Properties and applications. Journal of Progress in polymer science, 2006, vol. 31, no7, pp. 603-632

Shirui Mao, Xintao Shuai, Florian Unger, Michael Simon, Dianzhou Bi and Thomas Kissel. The depolymerization of chitosan: effects on physicochemical and biological properties. International Journal of Pharmaceutics, Volume 281, Issues 1-2, 20 August 2004, Pages 45-54

Further Reading:
Frequently Asked Questions: All About Chitosan by Carol N. Simontacchi

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