Gene Expression-Microarrays Laboratory, IRCCS-Children's Hospital Bambino Gesù, P.za S.Onofrio 4, 00165, Rome, Italy.
Mar Drugs. 2010 Apr 28;8(5):1518-25. doi: 10.3390/md8051518.
Chitin and chitosan are natural polysaccharide polymers. These polymers have been used in several agricultural, food protection and nutraceutical applications. Moreover, chitin and chitosan have been also used in biomedical and biotechnological applications as drug delivery systems or in pharmaceutical formulations. So far, there are only few studies dealing with arsenic (As) removal from groundwater using chitin or chitosan and no evidence of the use of these natural polymers for arsenic trioxide (As(2)O(3)) delivery in tumor therapy. Here we suggest that chitin and/or chitosan might have the right properties to be employed as efficient polymers for such applications. Besides, nanotechnology offers suitable tools for the fabrication of novel nanostructured materials of natural origin. Since different nanostructured materials have already been employed successfully in various multidisciplinary fields, we expect that the integration of nanotechnology and natural polymer chemistry will further lead to innovative applications for environment and medicine.
几丁质和壳聚糖是天然多糖聚合物。这些聚合物已被应用于农业、食品保护和营养保健品等多个领域。此外，几丁质和壳聚糖还被应用于生物医药和生物技术领域，作为药物输送系统或药物制剂。目前，仅有少数研究涉及使用几丁质或壳聚糖去除地下水中的砷，并且没有关于使用这些天然聚合物将三氧化二砷（As(2)O(3)）输送到肿瘤治疗中的证据。在这里，我们提出几丁质和/或壳聚糖可能具有作为此类应用的有效聚合物的特性。此外，纳米技术为新型天然来源的纳米结构材料的制造提供了合适的工具。由于不同的纳米结构材料已经在多个多学科领域成功应用，我们预计纳米技术和天然聚合物化学的结合将进一步为环境和医学带来创新应用。
