Exploring the natural polysaccharide-based self-healing polymers for biomedical application

Self-healing polymer has immense potential to automatically respond to specific damages such as cracks, scratches, or punctures, providing benefits in designing varied materials with diverse applications in targeted drug delivery, skin grafting, implants, wound healing (WHE), dentistry, and regeneration of both soft and hard tissues by using natural polysaccharides (NPs). Materials during prolonged use follow a degradation process caused by a variety of microfractures which are one such. These microcracks propagate and expose the active ingredients to atmospheric moisture, leading to degradation of product shelf life via different environmental conditions, which can be resolved by introducing self-healing polymers (SHPs). The current review is focused on comprehensive details of NPs effective in formulating SHPs with excellent biocompatibility, effective biodegradability, and lack of toxicity, exhibiting shape memory and tissue regeneration abilities; their healing efficiency can be triggered by external stimuli such as temperature, pH, and light, along with a summary of different types of biomimetic SHPs which involve chemical and mechanical interactions to restore the deformed structure and repair the cracked surface, which is crucial for maintaining structural properties for biomedical devices.