Biocompatible, nontoxic, and biodegradable polysaccharides are considered as a promising base for bio-inspired materials, applicable as scaffolds in regenerative medicine, coatings in drug delivery systems, etc. The tunable macroscopic properties of gels should meet case-dependent requirements. The admixture of proteins to polysaccharides and their coupling in more sophisticated structures opens an avenue for gel property tuning via physical cross-linking of components and the modification of gel network structure. In this review recent success in the conformational studies of binary protein-polysaccharide gels is summarized with the main focus upon carrageenans. Future perspectives and challenges in rational design of novel polysaccharide-based materials are outlined.
Keywords: FTIR-spectroscopy; crosslinking; galactan; molecular modelling; novel matter; protein–polysaccharide gels; structure; κ-carrageenan.