chitin

Mar. Drugs 2010, 8, 1988-2012; doi:10.3390/md8071988
OPEN ACCESS

Marine Drugs
ISSN 1660-3397 www.mdpi.com/journal/marinedrugs Review

Chitin Research Revisited
Feisal Khoushab and Montarop Yamabhai *
School of Biotechnology, Suranaree University of Technology, Nakhon Ratchasima, 30000, Thailand;
E-Mail: [e-mail]
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: [e-mail];
Tel.: [phone]; Fax: [phone].
Received: 2 May 2010; in revised form: 24 May 2010 / Accepted: 8 June 2010 /
Published: 28 June 2010

Abstract: Two centuries after the discovery of chitin, it is widely accepted that this biopolymer is an important biomaterial in many aspects. Numerous studies on chitin have focused on its biomedical applications. In this review, various aspects of chitin research including sources, structure, biosynthesis, chitinolytic enzyme, chitin binding protein, genetic engineering approach to produce chitin, chitin and evolution, and a wide range of applications in bio- and nanotechnology will be dealt with.
Keywords: chitin; chitosan; chito-oligosaccharide; biotechnology; nanobiotechnology

application;

nanotechnology;

1. Introduction
Chitin is one of the most abundant renewable biopolymer on earth that can be obtained as a cheap renewable biopolymer from marine sources [1]. It is biocompatible, biodegradable and bio-absorbable, with antibacterial and wound-healing abilities and low immunogenicity; therefore there have been many reports on its biomedical applications [2]. Accordingly, a very broad range of applications in different fields such as food technology, material science, microbiology, agriculture, wastewater treatment, drug delivery systems, tissue engineering, bionanotechnology have been reported.
Henri Braconnot, a French professor of natural history, discovered chitin in 1811 after the discovery of a ―material particularly resistant to usual chemicals‖ by A. Hachett, an

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