Recent advances of chitosan composites in artificial skin: the next era for potential biomedical application

Abstract Chitosan-based biodegradable composites have been extensively used in the domain of regenerative medicine for the last few decades. Chitosan composites have been explored for restoring damaged tissues and enhancing the healing process by promoting rate of vascularization. Various physicochemical characterizations, in vitro cytotoxic studies, and wound healing models have proved the potential efficacy of chitosan composites as skin substitute in burns and wound healing. Different techniques used for physicochemical modulation and variation in mechanical properties are being used to prepare biocompatible composites that mimic the extracellular matrix and pave a promising pathway to biomaterial fabrication. These artificial skin substitutes have some distinct advantages over biologic skin substitutes like avoiding complications related to probable disease transmission and controllable properties of artifacts. Certain disadvantages of chitosan like poor biomechanical and flexible properties can be overcome by making composites with suitable additives like silicone, collagen, nylon, gelatin, etc. HemCon, TraumaStat, and Vulnosorb are commercially well known wound dressing materials widely used for reconstruction of natural skin. Chitosan composites are emerging as potential candidate and have a quite promising future to be used as an ideal skin substitute for regeneration of wounded tissues.