Synthesis, characterization and stability of crosslinked chitosan-maltodextrin pH-sensitive nanogels.

Polysaccharide-based nanogels offer a wide range of chemical compositions and are of great interest due to their biodegradability, biocompatibility, non-toxicity, and their ability to display pH, temperature, or enzymatic response. In this work, we synthesized monodisperse and tunable pH-sensitive nanogels by crosslinking, through reductive amination, chitosan and partially oxidized maltodextrins, by keeping the concentration of chitosan close to its overlap concentration, i.e.

Chitosan-DNA polyelectrolyte complex: Influence of chitosan characteristics and mechanism of complex formation.

Polyelectrolyte complexes formed between DNA and chitosan present different and interesting physicochemical properties combined with high biocompatibility; they are very useful for biomedical applications. DNA in its double helical structure is a semi-rigid polyelectrolyte chain. Chitosan, an abundant polysaccharide in nature, is considered as one of the most attractive vectors due to its biocompatibility and biodegradability.