Bioactivity of Chitosan and Its Derivatives

Abstract

International audienceRegarded as biofunctional poly- and oligomers having much higher potential than cellulose in many fields, chitosan and its derivatives have become of great interest thanks to the recent progress in chitin chemistry. Chitosan, which is a natural-based polymer obtained by alkaline deacetylation of chitin, is an interesting bioactive polysaccharide composed of many reactive groups. This gives huge possibilities of chemical modifications to create new derivatives with a broad range of physico-chemical and biological activities. This review gives insights into chitosan, chitosan derivatives and their biological activities. Recent progresses of their chemistry are also discussed as well as biodegradability and environmental assessment concepts applied to these derivatives

Modification of Chitosan for the Generation of Functional Derivatives

“…Chemical modifications of CS are well-documented in recent publications for the last few years [4]. Due to the presence of reactive amino (-NH 2 ) and hydroxyl (-OH) groups, CS is very easily modifiable.…”

“…Chitosan (CS) is a copolymer of glucosamine and N-acetyl glucosamine branched by β- (1)(2)(3)(4) linkages. It is derived from chitin, which is among the most abundant biopolymers on Earth.…”

“…The unique chemical structures of chitin and CS led some authors to call them aminopolysaccharides [3]. Chitin is widely abundant as ordered crystalline microfibrils in several kinds of organisms, such as yeast and fungi (cell walls), crustacean shells, or insect cuticles, and is also produced by some green microalgae [4]. Two main polymeric forms of chitin have been described in the literature, namely α-and β-chitins, which are arranged as monoclinic and orthorhombic cells, respectively [5].…”

“…The global CS market was valued at 1205 million US$ in 2015 and will reach 2550 million US$ by the end of 2022, with an increase of 10.7% between 2016 and 2022. Generally, ten to the power of ten tons of chitin are produced annually [1][2][3][4]34,35].…”

Prospect of Polysaccharide-Based Materials as Advanced Food Packaging

“…Consequently, several strategies were proposed, in terms of blending CS with: (i) polymers such as cellulose, polyethylene terephthalate (PET), gelatin, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and (ii) citric acid, glycerol, genipin as plasticizers and cross-linkers in order to enhance water-resistance while maintaining high biodegradability [191][192][193][194]. Moreover, it was particularly described the excellent coating and film-forming abilities coupled with a very good intrinsic antimicrobial property against fungi and bacteria as largely described in the literature [183,184,195,196]. In recent years, all these features were exploited by lots of research groups using CS in packaging field and more especially in the development of innovative and very promising active food packaging such as antimicrobial packaging [197,198].…”