Saccharides, oligosaccharides, and polysaccharides nanoparticles for biomedical applications.

Modern requirements for designing efficient nanocarriers against diseases such as cancer are very complex. A suitable nanocarrier should indeed remain colloidally stable in the body, be biodegradable, target specific tumor cells, and release efficiently drugs. These challenging tasks can be overcome by using the chemistry of saccharides and polysaccharides. We discuss here recent applications of carbohydrates-based materials for providing biodegradability, enhancing contrast in bioimaging, a stealth effect for controlling the composition of protein corona, and targeting ability.