Fungal exopolysaccharides: Properties, sources, modifications, and biomedical applications

Fungal exopolysaccharides (EPSs) are natural biopolymers with diverse potential applications in the biomedical, packaging, cosmetic, and food industries. Fungal EPSs are easy to extract and purify polysaccharides that are biodegradable, biocompatible, with low immunogenicity, bioadhesion ability, antibacterial activity, and contain different reactive groups such as hydroxyl, carboxyl, and amine for chemical modifications. Despite fast progress in identifying and characterization fungal EPSs for biomedical applications, i.e., wound healing, drug, and gene delivery, only a few products have been commercialized based on fungal EPSs. This review critically discusses potential biomedical applications of fungi sourced EPSs in tissue engineering (TE), drug and gene delivery.