ABSTRACT
The chitins and chitosans of various origins and some of their derivatives obtained by chemical or enzymatic means are today protagonists in the scenario of wound healing, tissue engineering, and gene therapy, thanks to their outstanding properties. Basic information on these polysaccharides, relevant to the title topic, can be found in books and review articles (Varlamov et al. 2003, Kumar et al. 2004, Hollister 2005, Kurita 2006, Rinaudo 2006a,b, Uragami and Tokura 2006, Castagnino et al. 2008, Keong and Halin 2009, Yuan et al. 2009, Muzzarelli and Muzzarelli 2009, Muzzarelli 2009a,b,c, 2010).
