Coviello Tommasina, Matricardi Pietro, Alhaique Franco
University La Sapienza, Faculty of Pharmacy, P le Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy.
Expert Opin Drug Deliv. 2006 May;3(3):395-404. doi: 10.1517/17425247.3.3.395.
Hydrogels are hydrophilic polymeric networks, with chemical or physical crosslinks, that are capable of swell and can retain a large amount of water. Among the numerous types of macromolecules that can be used for hydrogel formation, polysaccharides show very attractive advantages in comparison to synthetic polymers. They are widely present in living organisms, are usually abundant and show a number of peculiar physicochemical properties; furthermore, these macromolecules are, in most cases, non-toxic, biocompatible and can be obtained from renewable sources. For these reasons, polysaccharides seem to be particularly suitable for different applications in the wide field of pharmaceutics. As examples of the studies that have been carried out on this topic, this review will focus on two polysaccharides, alginate and xyloglucan. Alginate has been, and still is, extensively investigated and has numerous industrial applications, whereas xyloglucan was chosen because, although it has been much less studied, it shows interesting properties that should find important practical uses in the near future. The possible advantages of physical gels over those that are chemically crosslinked are also discussed.
水凝胶是具有化学或物理交联的亲水性聚合物网络，能够膨胀并能保留大量水分。在众多可用于形成水凝胶的大分子类型中，与合成聚合物相比，多糖具有非常吸引人的优势。它们广泛存在于生物体中，通常含量丰富，并具有许多独特的物理化学性质；此外，这些大分子在大多数情况下无毒、具有生物相容性，并且可以从可再生资源中获得。由于这些原因，多糖似乎特别适合在广泛的制药领域中的不同应用。作为关于该主题已开展研究的示例，本综述将聚焦于两种多糖，即海藻酸盐和木葡聚糖。海藻酸盐一直并仍在被广泛研究，且有众多工业应用，而选择木葡聚糖是因为尽管对其研究较少，但它显示出有趣的性质，有望在不久的将来找到重要的实际用途。还讨论了物理凝胶相对于化学交联凝胶可能具有的优势。
