ABSTRACT
The porous and pH-responsive gelatine-sodium alginate microparticles are likely to have potential applications in food encapsulation, smart drug delivery, separation of biomolecules, enzyme immobilization, and so on. Polysaccharide-based biomaterials are an emerging class in several biomedical fields such as drug-delivery devices and tissue regeneration, particularly for cartilage and gel entrapment systems for the immobilization of cells. Biopolymers have received attention as tissue engineering (TE) substrates, with several studies examining materials such as gelatin, alginate, and chitosan as cell scaffolds for both two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) cell cultures. The alginate hydrogels have been particularly attractive in drug delivery, tissue engineering, and wound healing, as these gels retain structural similarity to the extracellular matrices in tissues and can be manipulated to play several critical roles. A brief review on the promising marine sources of sodium alginate and on the use of alginates in biomedical, food, and agricultural fields and in the treatment of wastewater from various industries has been reported.
