A large number of reviews on Chitosan were also published in 2021. According to HMC searches in the PubMed database, a total of 181 new reviews with chitosan in the title appeared in 2021. In this article, we would like to give you an overview of the publications, as well as briefly introduce five reviews on various topics related to chitosan. Have fun reading!

The development of nanotechnology has opened up new applications in the field of biomedicine. Chitosan and its derivatives can be used in a variety of ways, for example to enable targeted and sustained drug release. To give you an overview, we present a review that deals with the current research on the application of chitosan and its derivatives, especially carboxymthylchitosan (CMC), in biomedicine.

In microfluidic systems, analyses can be performed on a miniaturized scale without the use of complex laboratory equipment. In this context, DNA purification and concentration pose a particular challenge. To improve this, a disposable microfluidic device is functionalized with different chitosans for DNA binding in the presented study. This will then be used to detect eDNA of invasive species from river water samples.

Commercial extraction of chitin is mainly from the shells of crustaceans such as snow crabs. Fungi and insects are alternative sources of chitin, which are poorly usable so far. The expansion of insect farming for animal feed production in recent years has increased the availability of insect biomass. In the following, we present a review that provides an overview of recently published studies on the extraction of chitin from insects and its conversion to chitosan.

The corona virus disease COVID-19 has changed the world. To combat the pandemic, researchers and companies around the world are working to develop vaccines and medicines. Chitosan also has potential in the area of vaccine development and functionalization of protective equipment such as respirators. We have prepared summaries of recent publications on chitosan as an aid in the fight against corona.

Hepatocellular carcinoma is a solid tumor that exhibits severe angiogenesis, cell cycle dysregulation, and evasion of apoptosis. Late diagnosis in a large proportion of patients is making the carcinomas inoperable, and various chemotherapeutic agents are used. Due to the numerous side effects of known chemotherapeutic agents, intensive research is performed on the use of natural products and their synthetic analogues. The authors of the presented study investigated the effect of carboxymethyl chitosan oligosaccharides on the growth of hepatocellular tumors in mice.