Chitosan-based electrospun fibers for bone-tissue engineering: Recent research advancements

Abstract

Chitosan, a sustainable and highly abundant animal-derived biopolymer, possesses versatile properties, such as solubility, film-forming ability, viscosity, ion binding, and antimicrobial qualities, which are suitable for biomedical applications. Due to its charged nature, chitosan is a lucrative biopolymer for scaffold fabrication, especially for bone-tissue engineering applications, using the electrospinning method, which is an industrially suitable, scalable, and swift method for fabricating porous nanocomposite structures. Despite a lot of research being conducted on chitosan-based electrospun materials for bone tissue engineering, the research on this topic has not been thoroughly reviewed. This review article aims to fill this knowledge gap and provides an in-depth discussion of the research on this topic. To start with, a brief overview of bone tissue engineering has been provided, followed by the properties of chitosan, which make it an important biopolymer for this application. Also, the important factors that must be considered while electrospinning chitosan, especially considering its application in bone tissue engineering, have been debated. Further, the type of chitosan-based electrospun material has been discussed along with the recent advancements in this research area. Finally, a brief perspective on the future of this technology has been provided.

Keywords: Bone tissue engineering; Chitosan; Electrospinning.