Challenges and opportunities related to the use of chitosan as a food preservative

Abstract

Summary Chitosan has attracted a growing attention as a food preservative due to its versatility, nontoxicity, biodegradability and biocompatibility. This review aims to provide a critical appraisal of the limitations and opportunities of the use of chitosan as a food preservative. The application of chitosan as a food preservative necessitates insights into mechanisms of chitosan‐mediated cell death and injury, factors affecting chitosan activity and effects of chitosan on food safety and quality. Chitosan exerts antimicrobial activity by perturbing the negatively charged cell envelope of micro‐organisms with its polycationic structure. Intrinsic characteristics, including molecular weight and degree of deacetylation (DD), and other ambient conditions, including pH, temperature and neighbouring components, affect chitosan activity. Because the antimicrobial activity of chitosan is mainly based on ionic interactions with negatively charged components of the bacterial cell envelope, the food matrix can strongly interfere with the antimicrobial activity of chitosan. Despite its limited antimicrobial efficacy, chitosan demonstrates both bactericidal and bacteriostatic effects in specific food products. Moreover, chitosan can also enhance the efficacy of commercial intervention technologies, such as heat and pressure treatment, and aid the preservation of food quality, including retardation of lipid oxidation, weight loss and deterioration in sensory attributes.

Reduction in Spoilage Microbiota and Cyclopiazonic Acid Mycotoxin with Chestnut Extract Enriched Chitosan Packaging: Stability of Inoculated Gouda Cheese

“…All the ingredients used in films were of natural origin and declared as food safe [30]. A comprehensive study by Hu and Gänzle [60] shows chitosan's bactericidal effect towards several pathogenic microbes on artificially contaminated intermediate moisture foods, and states that the lethality is limited up to 5 log 10 CFU/g. Films incorporated with CE in this study are able to inhibit induced spoilage up to 4 log 10 CFU/g, indicating the efficiency to ensure food safety.…”

Control of pathogenic and spoilage bacteria in meat and meat products by high pressure: Challenges and future perspectives

“…The linear polysaccharide chitosan has also been proposed for its potential for use with high pressure in meat and meat products. The mode of action of chitosan relates to its disturbance of the cell envelope and the integrity of the cytoplasmic membrane (Hu & Gänzle, 2019). The combined application of chitosan and high pressure synergistically controls the bacterial growth of S. aureus and E. coli in minced pork (Malinowska‐Panczyk, Kołodziejska, Murawska, & Wołosewicz, 2009).…”

Chitosan Films Incorporated with Exopolysaccharides from Deep Seawater Alteromonas sp.

“…Polysaccharides are widely used to develop films and coatings for food and biomedical applications [1] as an alternative to plastic-based film production. In particular, chitosan is a polysaccharide extracted from marine crustacean shells [2], and due to its non-toxicity, antimicrobial activity, and biocompatibility [3], it is suitable as a food preservative [4], drug delivery system [5], and wound healing [6] application. Recently, research has been conducted in order to find novel functionalities of chitosan films through the incorporation of bioactive compounds of natural origin.…”