Inulin: A Versatile Biopolymer for Pharmaceutical Application

Abstract: For many years, inulin has been a versatile oligosaccharide that is mainly utilized in food. When compared to other biodegradable polysaccharides, inulin's unique and flexible structure, protective/stabilizing properties, along with organ-targeting abilities make it an ideal drug delivery vehicle. Inulin has drawn a lot of attention as a promising multifunctional natural biopolymer with a wide range of uses in drug delivery, prebiotics, and therapies. The three hydroxyl groups on each fructose unit present in inulin enable chemical modifications like (Esterification, Conjugation, crosslinking, Oxidation, or Reduction), allowing it to be tailored for drug delivery applications. Thus, therapeutics and biomolecules can be released in a sustained and controlled manner, increasing their bioavailability and cellular absorption at the targeted site. It clarifies the complex interactions between the host and inulin, microbiota, and medicinal drugs, exposing a multidimensional biopolymer with transformative potential. They are excellent carriers in healthcare and biomedicine due to their flexible structure, biocompatibility, remarkable target ability, innate ability to govern release behaviour, customizable degradation kinetics, and protective capacity. Drug targeting is the process of delivering a medication to the desired site of action. One of the advantages of drug targeting is that the medicinal molecule is released at a consistent and regulated rate, preventing overdose. The potential of inulin as an encapsulating material was examined in terms of its enzymatic degradability and drug-release characteristics. Inulin has a wide range of therapeutic applications. These include use as a dietary fibre with extra health benefits, as a diagnostic and analytical tool, and as a carrier in a drug delivery system. Inulin has been the subject of extensive research as a drug delivery carrier for colon-specific drug administration. Inulin has a wide range of applications in the pharmaceutical industry overall, and research on it is still ongoing, especially concerning chemically modified inulin. Therefore, it's conceivable that this flexible oligosaccharide will find even more uses.