title: Reactive blends based on polyhydroxyalkanoates: Preparation and biomedical application.
abstract: Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are a class of natural polyesters as carbon and energy reserves by >300 species of microorganisms. They are fully biodegradable, biocompatible and piezoelectric biopolymers that have attracted much attention recently as the biomaterial of choice for medical applications. However, the toughness, processability and hydrophilicity of PHAs need to tune to expand their applications as tissue engineering scaffolds or drug delivery systems. Reactive polymer blending is one of the most economic and versatile way to produce materials combining the desired properties via forming the compatibilizing agents in situ or inducing the chemico-physical interactions between polymer blends. This review focuses on the PHAs-based reactive blends aiming to present a brief introduction to the mechanism of reactive polymer blending technique, including the formation of H-bonding, branching/crosslinking copolymers, graft copolymers or complex copolymers during polymer blending process.
authors: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Key Laboratory of Biomaterials of Guangdong Higher Education Institutes, College of Life Science and Technology, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China.
authors: Y
authors: Y
authors: Ke
authors: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Key Laboratory of Biomaterials of Guangdong Higher Education Institutes, College of Life Science and Technology, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China.
authors: X Y
authors: XY
authors: Zhang
authors: Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Institute of CNS Regeneration (GHMICR), Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China.
authors: S
authors: S
authors: Ramakrishna
authors: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Key Laboratory of Biomaterials of Guangdong Higher Education Institutes, College of Life Science and Technology, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China. Electronic address: tlmhe@jnu.edu.cn.
authors: L M
authors: LM
authors: He
authors: Department of Biomedical Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510641, China. Electronic address: imwugang@scut.edu.cn.
authors: G
authors: G
authors: Wu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D020811:Biomedical Technology / Q000379:methods*; D016503:Drug Delivery Systems; D006801:Humans; D054813:Polyhydroxyalkanoates / Q000138:chemical synthesis* / Q000737:chemistry*; D023822:Tissue Engineering; D054457:Tissue Scaffolds / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D054813:Polyhydroxyalkanoates
keywords: Controlled drug delivery; Copolymer; H-bonding; Polyhydroxyalkanoate; Reactive polymer blending; Tissue engineering