Potential of pectin for biomedical applications: a comprehensive review.

Pectin is a polysaccharide extracted from various plants, such as apples, oranges, lemons, and it possesses some beneficial effects on human health, including being hypoglycemic and hypocholesterolemic. Therefore, pectin is used in various pharmaceutical and biomedical applications. Meanwhile, its low mechanical strength and fast degradation rate limit its usage as drug delivery devices and tissue engineering scaffolds. To enhance these properties, it can be modified or combined with other organic molecules or polymers and/or inorganic compounds. These materials can be prepared as nano sized drug carriers in the form of spheres, capsules, hydrogels, self assamled micelles, etc., for treatment purposes (mostly cancer). Different composites or blends of pectin can also be produced as membranes, sponges, hydrogels, or 3D printed matrices for tissue regeneration applications. This review is concentrated on the properties of pectin based materials and focus especially on the utilization of these materials as drug carriers and tissue engineering scaffolds, including 3D printed and 3D bioprinted systems covering the studies in the last decade and especially in the last 5 years.

pH responsive release of curcumin from photocrosslinked pectin/gelatin hydrogel wound dressings.

The aim of this study was to develop hydrogel wound dressings made of photocrosslinkable pectin and gelatin with pH dependent release of curcumin, an antimicrobial agent. Methacrylated forms of pectin and gelatin (PeMA and GelMA, respectively) were synthesized, and hydrogels were prepared with different compositions (1:1, 1:2 and 1:3 v/v ratios of PeMA and GelMA) by UV exposure. Pure GelMA was used as control group. Average pore diameter of hydrogels with the highest PeMA content (P1:G1) was 43 µm. All hydrogels showed about 90% swelling. P1:G3 demonstrated the highest stability (retained about 37% of their initial weight after 21 days incubation in PBS), a reasonable compressive modulus (ca. 22 kPa), oxygen permeability (7.44 mg/mL) and preventing ability for bacterial penetration. Therefore, P1:G3 hydrogels were chosen and loaded with curcumin for further studies. In aqueous medium (10 mM PBS, pH 7.4), about 4 times faster release of curcumin was observed than that in medium with pH 5.0. Since infected wounds have alkaline pH compared to healthy tissue, faster release at basic medium is preferable for wound grafts. Disk diffusion tests proved antibacterial efficacy of the hydrogels against S. aureus and E. coli. Live/Dead and Alamar blue assays conducted with L929 fibroblasts showed cytocompatibility of the hydrogels. It was concluded that curcumin loaded P1:G3 hydrogels are promising candidates as wound dressing materials to be further tested in the treatment of infected and chronic wounds.