Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA): applications in drug delivery and tissue engineering

ABSTRACT

Introduction: The applications of naturally obtained polymers are tremendously increased due to them being biocompatible, biodegradable, environmentally friendly and renewable in nature. Among them, polyhydroxyalkanoates are widely studied and they can be utilized in many areas of human life research such as drug delivery, tissue engineering, and other medical applications.

Areas covered: This review provides an overview of the polyhydroxyalkanoates biosynthesis and their possible applications in drug delivery in the range of micro- and nano-size. Moreover, the possible applications in tissue engineering are covered considering macro- and microporous scaffolds and extracellular matrix analogs.

Expert commentary: The majority of synthetic plastics are non-biodegradable so, in the last years, a renewed interest is growing to develop alternative processes to produce biologically derived polymers. Among them, PHAs present good properties such as high immunotolerance, low toxicity, biodegradability, so, they are promisingly using as biomaterials in biomedical applications.

KEYWORDS:

• Polyhydroxyalkanoate
• processing technologies
• drug delivery
• tissue engineering
• biosynthesis

Article highlights

• Current progresses in biosynthesis methods are satisfying to produce PHA at purity levels to be used in vivo;

• The recognized biocompatibility of PHAs makes them ideal candidates for the production of scaffolds, or other devices to be used for in vivo repair or tissue regeneration

• PHAs micro-and nanosized carriers can efficiently transport bioactive compounds to target tissues, suggesting new solutions for therapeutic treatments;

• The growing knowledge of novel manufacturing techniques to process PHA paves the way to the fabrication of custom-made devices in vivo use.

Further efforts still need to be spent to make PHA production really economically attractive respect to biosynthetic polymers;

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was not funded.