Reviews and publications with chitosan in 2023

Numerous publications on the topic of chitosan were published again last year. It was observed that the number increased again compared to the previous year. While a total of 3097 publications with chitosan in the title were published in 2022, there were over 300 more publications in 2023 with 3409. We at HMC are very excited about this!

Of the 3409 search results (PubMed, as of 12.02.2024), 213 were reviews. The top 3 journals were the International Journal of Biological Macromolecules (56 reviews), Carbohydrate Polymers (24 reviews) and Polymers (Basel) (23 reviews). Reviews were published on a wide variety of topics such as nanoparticles/nanofibers (52), drug transport (24), hydrogels (31) and wound treatment (7). In the following, we would like to briefly present three of the reviews on different topics:

Thambiliyagodage, C.; Jayanetti, M.; Mendis, A.; Ekanayake, G.; Liyanaarachchi, H.; Vigneswaran, S. Recent Advances in Chitosan-Based Applications—A Review. Materials 2023, 16, 2073. https://doi.org/10.3390/ma16052073

In their review, Thambiliyagodage et al. provide an overview of the latest developments of chitosan-based applications in areas such as drug delivery, dentistry, ophthalmology, wound dressing, cell encapsulation, bioimaging or tissue engineering. The advantages and disadvantages of using chitosan and chitosan derivatives in the above-mentioned applications are explained in this review and the main challenges and future prospects are discussed in detail.

Beleño Acosta, B.; Advincula, R.C.; Grande-Tovar, C.D. Chitosan-Based Scaffolds for the Treatment of Myocardial Infarction: A Systematic Review. Molecules 2023, 28, 1920. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules28041920

The review by Acosta et al. systematically summarizes and evaluates the literature of the last 5 years on the production and application of chitosan scaffolds for the reconstruction of myocardial tissue. It was found that chitosan is particularly suitable for the reconstruction of myocardial tissue by mimicking the physiological environment with a controlled porosity that enables the exchange of nutrients, the improvement of electrical conductivity and the stimulation of cell differentiation of stem cells.

Al-Absi MY, Caprifico AE, Calabrese G. Chitosan and Its Structural Modifications for siRNA Delivery. Adv Pharm Bull. 2023 Mar;13(2):275-282. doi: https://doi.org/10.34172/apb.2023.030 Epub 2022 Jan 8. PMID: 37342385; PMCID: PMC10278227.

In their review, Al-Absi et al. describe various chemical and non-chemical chitosan derivatives to improve the transport of siRNA, as conventional chitosan has some limitations such as limited solubility at physiological pH. Besides the type of modifications, chemical structure, physiochemical properties or siRNA binding properties of the derivatives, the properties of the resulting nanoparticles were analyzed and the choice of modifications was discussed.