[Research progress and industrialization prospect analysis of polysaccharides from traditional Chinese medicine with...

China possesses extraordinarily abundant traditional medicinal resources, and polysaccharide-rich Chinese herbal medicines exhibit tremendous resource-chemical advantages and innovative value for the health industry in terms of both quantity and diversity. In recent years, academia and industry have increasingly focused on exploiting the resource value of these polysaccharides from traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) and developing polysaccharide-based products, igniting a new wave of applied research. Natural polysaccharides, when present at sufficient concentration and subject to environmental factors such as temperature, pH, and ionic strength, can self-assemble into three-dimensional networks to form gels, a property known as polysaccharide gelation. This gelation behavior opens new avenues for their industrial application in drug delivery, tissue engineering, and functional product development. However, studies on the gelation characteristics of polysaccharides from TCM remain in their infancy, and the governing principles of their gelation and corresponding applications require deeper elucidation. Accordingly, this paper reviewed recent advances in the study of gel-forming polysaccharides from TCM, systematically delineating the intrinsic relationships between their gelation properties and molecular structures. Based on structural features, these polysaccharides were categorized into three classes, from which three common patterns were summarized. This aims to provide a reference for the systematic research of polysaccharides from TCM. Additionally, the paper analyzed the current state of industrialization of gel-forming polysaccharides from TCM and proposed exploratory future directions and strategies to guide industrial and clinical application of gel-forming polysaccharides from TCM.