Versatile Chemical Derivatizations to Design Glycol Chitosan-Based Drug Carriers

Abstract

Glycol chitosan (GC) and its derivatives have been extensively investigated as safe and effective drug delivery carriers because of their unique physiochemical and biological properties. The reactive functional groups such as the amine and hydroxyl groups on the GC backbone allow for easy chemical modification with various chemical compounds (e.g., hydrophobic molecules, crosslinkers, and acid-sensitive and labile molecules), and the versatility in chemical modifications enables production of a wide range of GC-based drug carriers. This review summarizes the versatile chemical modification methods that can be used to design GC-based drug carriers and describes their recent applications in disease therapy.

Biocompatible Glycol Chitosan Microgels as Effective Drug Carriers

“…Furthermore, a drug loading amount of up to 80% and sustained release for a week were achieved by encapsulating drugs into hydrophobically modified GC as reported in the literature [26]. GC has been modified with various hydrophobic molecules such as histidine derivatives [27], glutathione (GSH) [28], palmitic acid [29], deoxycholic acid (DOCA) [30], fullerene (C 60 ) [30], and fluorescence isothiocyanate (FTIC) [30] to obtain amphiphilic GC derivatives. Duhem et al synthesized tocol derivatives of chitosan as amphiphilic polymers and loaded them with an antifungal agent [21].…”

Deep Tumor Penetration of Doxorubicin-Loaded Glycol Chitosan Nanoparticles Using High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound

“…Glycol chitosan is a natural polysaccharide which is derived from chitosan, it has biocompatibility, non-toxicity, biodegradability, and easy fabrication properties [ 32 ]. Notably, a large number of reactive functional groups (primary amine and hydroxyl group) on the glycol chitosan backbone can be modified with cholanic acids, hydrotropic oligomer, photosensitizers, and fullerene, resulting in the formulation of nanomedicines for chemotherapy, gene therapy, and photodynamic therapy [ 33 ]. Among them, hydrophobically modified glycol chitosan can form self-assembled nanoparticles due to its amphiphilic structure.…”