Chitosan centered bionanocomposites for medical specialty and curative applications: A review

The polyfunctional nature of chitosan enables its application not only in polymer technology but also shows their importance in the field of nanotechnology for the fabrication of the wide spectrum of functional nanomaterials in biomedical field. Chitosan is a poly aminosaccharide with appealing structure composed of beta-(1 -> 4)-linked D-glucosamine (deacetylated unit) and N-acetyl-D-glucosamine (acetylated unit). It has various functional groups that enriches for various properties such as antibacterial, mucoadhasive, nontoxic, biodegradable, biocompatible. With the advancement of material technologies, chitosan is being chemically modified into self-assembled nanocomposites for advanced biomedical applications. This review article demonstrate the various schemes for the preparation of chitosan nanocomposites from different functional material, focusing on their application specifically in tissue engineering, drug and gene delivery, wound healing and bioimaging. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.