Zhao, L.; Zhou, Y.; Zhang, J.; Liang, H.; Chen, X.; Tan, H. Natural Polymer-Based Hydrogels: From Polymer to Biomedical Applications. Pharmaceutics2023, 15, 2514.
Zhao, L.; Zhou, Y.; Zhang, J.; Liang, H.; Chen, X.; Tan, H. Natural Polymer-Based Hydrogels: From Polymer to Biomedical Applications. Pharmaceutics 2023, 15, 2514.
Zhao, L.; Zhou, Y.; Zhang, J.; Liang, H.; Chen, X.; Tan, H. Natural Polymer-Based Hydrogels: From Polymer to Biomedical Applications. Pharmaceutics2023, 15, 2514.
Zhao, L.; Zhou, Y.; Zhang, J.; Liang, H.; Chen, X.; Tan, H. Natural Polymer-Based Hydrogels: From Polymer to Biomedical Applications. Pharmaceutics 2023, 15, 2514.
Abstract
Hydrogels prepared from natural polymer have attracted extensive attentions in biomedical fields such as drug delivery, wound healing, and regenerative medicine due to their good biocompatibility, degradability and flexibility. This review outlines the commonly used natural polymer in hydrogel preparation, including cellulose, chitosan, collagen/gelatin, alginate, hyaluronic acid and starch. The polymeric structure and process/synthesis of natural polymers are illustrated, and natural polymer-based hydrogels including the hydrogel formation and properties are elaborated. Subsequently, the biomedical application of hydrogels based on natural polymer in drug delivery, tissue regeneration, wound healing and other biomedical field is summarized. Finally, the future perspectives of natural polymers and hydrogels based on them are discussed. For natural polymer, novel technologies such as enzymatic and biological methods are developed to improve the structural properties and the development of new natural based polymers or natural polymer derivatives with high performance is still very important and challenging. For natural polymer-based hydrogels, novel hydrogel materials, like double-network hydrogel, multifunctional composite hydrogels and hydrogel microrobots are designed to meet the advanced requirements in biomedical application, and new strategies such as dual-crosslinking, microfluidic chip, micropatterning and 3D/4D bioprinting, have been explored to fabricate advanced hydrogel materials with designed properties for biomedical application. Overall, natural polymeric hydrogels have attracted increasing interests in biomedical application, and the development of novel natural polymer-based materials and new strategies/methods for hydrogel fabrication is badly desirable and still challenging.
Keywords
hydrogel; natural polymer; drug delivery; tissue engineering; wound healing
Subject
Chemistry and Materials Science, Materials Science and Technology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
