Utilization of Carbohydrate Originated from Marine Organisms for Artificial Bone Binders

Marine organisms such as algae have abundant carbohydrates such as alginate, fucoidan, and so on which have viscous biological properties. Laminaria japonica contains a large amount of alginic acids (alginate: ~20% dry weight and fucoidan : ~5% dry weight). It has been known that alginic acid and fucoidan, laminarin, and mannitol, which are mostly components in L. japonica, have excellent medicinal effects. Herein, in order to increase the binding ability, carbohydrate extracted from L. japonica was selected as a binder in brown algae. An additional component (citric acid) was added for crosslinking of the carbohydrate. It has been known that carboxyl group in citric acid and hydroxyl group in carbohydrates could be coupled, and produced ester group. These crosslinking actions by carbohydrate components extracted from marine organisms are expected to increase the compressive strength of the hydroxyapatite pellet as well as positive effect for bone regeneration.