STRATEGIES OF HYALURONAN CHEMICAL MODIFICATIONS FOR BIOMEDICAL APPLICATIONS

Hyaluronan (HA), a non-branched and multifunctional glycosaminoglycan, attracted interest by its breadth of biological roles, despite its structural simplicity. HA was considered a versatile building block to develop new biomaterials for more and more diverse and ingenious biomedical applications, such as scaffolds for tissue engineering, including cell and bioactive molecules, regenerative medicine, coatings and carriers used in imagistic investigations or therapy. The challenge of selective chemical reactions comes from HA limited solubility in organic solvents and sensitivity to enzymatic, mechanic and thermal degradation. All functional groups of HA can be modified by conjugation or covalent crosslinking with synthetic or natural compounds. All these modifications intent to improve the mechanical, rheological, swelling and controlled degradation properties of native HA in related biomaterials.