Levan-based nanostructured systems: An overview

Bacterial levan is a fructose homopolymer that offers great potential in biotechnological applications due to biocompatibility, biodegradability and non-toxicity. This biopolymer possesses diverse multifunctional features, which translates into a wide range of applicability, including in industry, consumer products, pharmaceuticals and biomedicine. Extensive research has identified great potential for its exploitation in human health. In addition, nanostructured systems have provided significant advances in the area of health, mainly with respect to disease diagnosis and treatment. While the functional properties of these natural polysaccharide-based polymers are desirable in these systems, research in this area has been limited to few natural polymers, such as chitosan, alginate and dextran, which obscures the true potential of levan in the production of nanostructured systems for biotechnological and medical applications. The present review considers the latest research in the field to focus on the use of levan as a promising biopolymer for the development of nanomaterials.