Abstract/Summary

Gellan gum is an anionic microbially derived polysaccharide which produced via fermentation of Sphingomonas elodea. The chemical structure of gellan gum composes of four repeating monosaccharide units such as two glucose units (1,3-β-D-glucose and 1,4-β-D-glucose), 1,4-α-L-rhamnose, and 1,4-β-D-glucuronic acid with molar ratio of 2: 1:1. The native gellan gum structure contains two different types of acyl substituents, including high acyl and low acyl types. So far, gellan gum is widely used in food industry as an emulsifier, a thickener, and stabilizer instead of agar-agar. However, recently, in pharmaceutical and biomedical applications, gellan gum-based drug delivery systems have gained more attention for delivery of various therapeutic drugs via different drug administration routes to control and sustain drug release into target site. Gellan gum has unique favorable features such as its biodegradability, thermal, mechanical, and acid stability, low cost, biocompatibility, nontoxicity, mucoadhesiveness, hypoallergenicity, simple and mild processing preparation, and high transparency. Therefore, it offers an effective and safe drug delivery carrier in various dosage forms including tablets, microparticles, nanoparticles, beads, films, hydrogels, etc. This chapter focuses on recent modified gellan gum-based microparticles, nanoparticles, and hydrogels for drug delivery, especially, through different drug administration routes: nasal, ocular, oral, and buccal routes.