Chapter 3
Plant Polysaccharides in Pharmaceutical
Applications
Amit Kumar Nayak, Md Saquib Hasnain, Amal Kumar Dhara,
and Dilipkumar Pal
Abstract Plant polysaccharides are the by-products of photosynthesis within the
plants and are being extracted from different parts of the plants, such as leaves,
pods, fruits, seeds, cereals, stems, roots, rhizomes, corms, exudates, etc. The
important advantages for the uses of plant polysaccharides include easy availability
from the nature as plant resources are abundant, sustainable and low cost production, biodegradability, biocompatibility, water solubility, swelling ability, etc. Since
long, numerous plant polysaccharides have already been explored and exploited as
excipients in a variety of common pharmaceutical dosage forms, such as suspensions, emulsions, gels, tablets, capsules, beads, microparticles, nanoparticles,
liposomes, transdermal formulations, buccal formulations, nasal formulations,
ophthalmic formulations, etc. The current chapter presents a brief review on the
pharmaceutical applications of various plant polysaccharides.
Keywords Plant polysaccharides Á Biopolymers Á Excipient Á Pharmaceutical
applications Á Drug delivery
A. K. Nayak
Department of Pharmaceutics, Seemanta Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Mayurbhanj,
Odisha 757086, India
Md. S. Hasnain
Department of Pharmacy, Shri Venkateshwara University, Gajraula, Amroha, UP, India
A. K. Dhara
Department of Pharmacy, Contai Polytechnic, Darua, Contai, Purba Medinipur,
West Bengal 721406, India
D. Pal (&)
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Guru Ghasidas Vishwavidyalaya
(A Central University), Koni, Bilaspur, C.G 495009, India
e-mail: drdilip2003@yahoo.co.in
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
D. Pal and A. K. Nayak (eds.), Bioactive Natural Products
for Pharmaceutical Applications, Advanced Structured Materials 140,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54027-2_3
93