Flaxseed (Linum usitatissimum) mucilage: A versatile stimuli-responsive functional biomaterial for pharmaceuticals and healthcare

The present review is novel as it discusses the main findings of researchers on the topic and their implications, as well as highlights the emerging research in this particular area and its future prospective. The seeds of Flax (Linum usitatissimum) extrude mucilage (FSM) that has a diverse and wide range of applications, especially in the food industry and as a pharmaceutical ingredient. FSM has been blended with several food and dairy products to improve gelling ability, optical properties, taste, and user compliance. The FSM is recognized as a foaming, encapsulating, emulsifying, suspending, film-forming, and gelling agent for several pharmaceutical preparations and healthcare materials. Owing to stimuli (pH) -responsive swelling-deswelling characteristics, high swelling indices at different physiological pHs of the human body, and biocompatibility, FSM is considered a smart material for intelligent, targeted, and controlled drug delivery applications through conventional and advanced drug delivery systems. FSM has been modified through carboxymethylation, acetylation, copolymerization, and electrostatic complexation to get the desired properties for pharma, food, and healthcare products. The present review is therefore devoted to the isolation techniques, structural characterization, highly valuable properties for food and pharmaceutical industries, preclinical and clinical trials, pharmacological aspects, biomedical attributes, and patents of FSM.