Potential Applications of Chitosan Nanoparticles as Novel Support in Enzyme Immobilization

Chitosan is an attractive natural biopolymer from r enewable resources with the presence of reactive am ino and hydroxyl functional groups in its structure. Du e to the good biocompatibility of chitosan, it can be used in magnetic-field assisted drug delivery, enzyme or cell immobilization and many other industrial applications. In the past decade, nanotechnology ha s been a considerable research interest in the area of preparation of immobilized enzyme carriers. This st udy looks at characteristics and applications of ch itosan and chitosan nanoparticles and their potentials as suit able supports for enzyme immobilization. Results indicated that activity of immobilized enzymes and performance of enzyme immobilization onto chitosan nanoparticles are higher than chitosan macro and microparticles. As c ompared to other biopolymers nanoparticles, applica tion of chitosan nanoparticles to immobilize enzymes strongly increases stability of immobilized enzymes and t heir easy separability from the reaction mixture at the end o f the biochemical process.