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Microencapsulation of new probiotic formulations for gastrointestinal delivery: in vitro study to assess viability and biological properties

  • Applied microbial and cell physiology
  • Published:
Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The paper describes the preparation of new probiotic formulations based on chitosan-coated alginate microcapsules containing three different probiotic strains, Lactobacillus plantarum PBS067, Lactobacillus rhamnosus PBS070, and Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis PBS075 taken individually and as a mixture of them. The effects of microencapsulation on the viability of the strains in conditions simulating the gastrointestinal tract and under industrial processes conditions were studied. In addition, an evaluation of their probiotic properties was also investigated by in vitro tests on the human intestinal cell line HT-29 to explore the effect of microencapsulation on health beneficial effect of the considered strains. Non-encapsulated cells were completely destroyed when exposed to simulated gastric juice and other stress conditions, while encapsulated cells exhibited a significantly higher resistance to artificial intestinal juice and heat and osmotic treatment. Moreover, in this study, the effect of the various microencapsulated probiotic strain formulations was compared with analogous formulations also containing the β-glucan Pleuran. The microencapsulation effectively protected the selected bacteria, as single strain and as a mixture of the three strains in both the formulations with and without Pleuran, from simulating gastrointestinal tract and industrial process conditions in delivering the viable cells without any significant adverse effect on their functionalities. The comparative study of the immunomodulatory properties of each single strain and the mixture of the three strains revealed a synergistic effect of the probiotic mixture, but no appreciable difference between the two kinds of formulations could be detected, as the effect of Pleuran is covered by the higher potential of the probiotic strains.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the PROBIOPLUS4FOOD Project ID 30221122 from Italian Ministry of Research (MIUR) and Lombardy Region for financial support.

Ethical statement

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

Conflict of interest

The authors of the paper declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biotechnology and Biosciences, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza della Scienza 2, 20126, Milan, Italy

    G. D’Orazio, P. Di Gennaro, M. Boccarusso, I. Presti, M. Labra & B. La Ferla

  2. Farcoderm Srl, San Martino Siccomario, Pavia, Italy

    G. Bizzaro, S. Giardina & A. Michelotti

Authors
  1. G. D’Orazio
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  2. P. Di Gennaro
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  3. M. Boccarusso
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  4. I. Presti
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  5. G. Bizzaro
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  6. S. Giardina
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  7. A. Michelotti
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  8. M. Labra
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  9. B. La Ferla
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Correspondence to P. Di Gennaro.

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D’Orazio, G., Di Gennaro, P., Boccarusso, M. et al. Microencapsulation of new probiotic formulations for gastrointestinal delivery: in vitro study to assess viability and biological properties. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 99, 9779–9789 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-015-6853-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00253-015-6853-1

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