Recent advances of artificially sulfated polysaccharides for applications in cell growth and differentiation, drug delivery and tissue engineering: a Mini-Review.

Polysaccharide sulfates as the mimetics of native heparin and heparan sulfate are important bioactive compounds, since they show great potential for tuning crucial biological activities within living organisms. In this Mini-Review, we summarize the progress of polysaccharide sulfates, such as cellulose sulfate, chitosan sulfate, other sulfated polysaccharides, in particular in the fields of biomedical and bioengineering applications in the past ten years with emphasis on their effects on cell growth and differentiation, but also as building blocks for drug carriers and medical implants.