Elsevier

Food Chemistry

Volume 190, 1 January 2016, Pages 1174-1181
Food Chemistry

Review
Advances in characterisation and biological activities of chitosan and chitosan oligosaccharides

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2015.06.076Get rights and content

Highlights

  • The review introduced COS preparation methods, physicochemical properties and modification.

  • Several biological properties of COS are discussed.

  • The proposed anti-tumour mechanisms of COS are highlighted on the molecular level.

  • The potential applications and future development of the biopolymer are concluded.

Abstract

Chitosan and chitosan oligosaccharides (COS) have been reported to possess various biomedical properties, including antimicrobial activities, immuno-enhancing effects, and anti-tumour activities. COS have attracted considerable interest due to their physicochemical properties, and potential applications in the food and pharmaceutical industries, especially in cancer therapies. This paper describes the preparation of COS and their physicochemical properties, and modification, which aids understanding of their biological activities. Based on the latest reports, several biological and anti-tumour activities of COS will be discussed. The proposed anti-tumour mechanisms of COS are summarised, to provide comprehensive insights into research on the molecular level. Finally, the potential applications and future development of the biopolymer will be discussed.

Introduction

Chitin is the most abundant polysaccharide in natural macromolecules, next to cellulose, as the major component of the shells of crustaceans, such as crabs and insects. Although chitin has many functional specialties in various areas, the low water solubility and poor biodegradation performance restricts its applications. As the degraded products of chitosan or chitin, chitosan oligosaccharides (COS) have recently been produced by several methods, such as enzymatic and acidic hydrolysis. The degraded products have a smaller molecular weight, and are readily soluble in aqueous solutions, making COS perform valuable biological activities at the cellular or molecular level. The study of COS has been increasing not only for the regeneration characteristics of abundant natural resources, but also for their biological compatibility and effectiveness. There are numerous reports on the biological activities of COS and their potential applications in food (Du, Wang, Yuan, Wei, & Hu, 2009), pharmaceutical (Berger, Reist, Mayer, Felt, & Gurny, 2004), agricultural, and environmental industries (Crini, 2005). As natural antioxidants (Xie, Xu, & Liu, 2001), COS possess multiple properties, such as anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial (Choi et al., 2001), hypocholesterolemic (Muzzarelli et al., 2006), immunostimulating (Feng, Zhao, & Yu, 2004), and anti-tumour activity (Salah et al., 2013). Moreover, the features of innately biocompatible, non-toxic, and non-allergenic to living tissues have made COS a promising drug carrier and tissue-engineering scaffold for nano-/micro-architecture (Dash, Chiellini, Ottenbrite, & Chiellini, 2011). This review summarises the preparation methods and modification of COS, discusses well-known biological activities of COS, and highlights the anti-tumour property and its relevant mechanisms. The future utilisation and potential development is also elucidated.

Section snippets

Characterisation of chitosan and COS

Chitosan is the N-deacetylated form of chitin and linear polysaccharides with a variable degree of N-acetylation, which is composed of less than 20% β-(1,4)-2-acetamido-d-glucopyranose and more than 80% β-(1,4)-2-amino-d-glucopyranose (Fig. 1A). Chitosan is water-insoluble and highly viscous in dilute acidic solutions. This solubility drawback may restrict the applications of chitosan in biological fields. In contrast, as the hydrolysed products of chitosan, COS have better solubility and lower

Biological activities of COS

Chitosan and COS have attracted considerable interests because of their biological activities and potential applications in food, pharmaceutical, agricultural, and environmental industries. Recent advances have highlighted the health benefits of COS including antihypertensive, lowering of blood cholesterol, and anti-infectious and anti-tumour effects. Although there has been an increase in studies of the biological activities of COS, no single type of chitosan or COS exerts all the

Prospect

Many functional products, such as chitosan capsules and COS capsules are available commercially, and COS for medical use have also been prepared based on their biological activities. Because no single type of COS exerts all biological activities, different chitosan derivatives have different structures and physicochemical properties, which may result in novel findings of biological activities and bioactive compounds. Therefore, modification of COS will contribute to synthesis polymers with

Conclusion

As has been summarised, chitosan and chitosan oligosaccharides (COS) possess various biological activities, which largely depend on the physicochemical properties, including the degree of deacetylation (DD), molecular weight (also known as degree of polymerisation or DP), and cationic nature. The advantages and disadvantages of chemical and enzymatic hydrolysis methods were demonstrated. Several biological activities were concluded, by the description of proposed mechanisms and relevant

Acknowledgment

The study was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31000831), Agriculture Science Technology Achievement Transformation Fund (No. 2008GB23260349) and Research Fund for Post-doctor of Heilongjiang Province (No. LBH. Q12085).

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