Review on Anti-cancer and Anti-microbial Applications of Curdlan Biomaterials

Polysaccharides are polymers of natural origin that are formed by microorganisms, animals and plants. Polysaccharides play an important part in the progress of living creatures because these are important particles for various life activities. These biologically derived polysaccharides are interesting because of their important characteristics like biodegradability, non-toxicity availability, biocompatibility, stability and low-cost production. In the recent years, biomaterials of polysaccharide origin have become innovative research goal in the arena of material science and engineering since polysaccharides establish a significant constituent of life matter and shows outstanding properties, which are the representative features of biomaterials. Polysaccharide biomaterials have been broadly proposed as scaffold materials in tissue engineering applications as gene carriers and for drug delivery systems. Curdlan is a class of natural polymer with exceptional pharmacological characteristics and has the capability to form single and triple helical structures with various biological important bioactive molecules for anticancer and antimicrobial applications. Curdlan is favorable for increasing the solubility in comparison to other polysaccharides therefore provides the possibilities for processing this polysaccharide with bioactive molecules into biomacromolecules of desired functions. Curdlan conjugated with various anticancer and antimicrobial agents have been explored, either as a delivery carrier for the drug or as a biomaterial with the drug. This review summarized almost all studies of curdlan with anticancer, antimicrobial applications, the analysis of different curdlan formulations and the influence of bioactive molecules on their anticancer and antimicrobial properties.