Microencapsulation of Lactobacillus sp. Using two Different Materials and Comparison for Encapsulation Efficiency

Abstract

Probiotics are microorganisms which, when taken orally, provide beneficial effects on human gut health. Microencapsulation of probiotics is a technique that is currently receiving considerable interest as it helps probiotics to survive against adverse environmental conditions in the human body. In this project , a study to determine the stronger encapsulating material is done by encapsulating Lactobacillus sp. using alginate and skim milk alginate. The encapsulation was done by extruding into 100mM CaCl 2 solution. Viability test, bile salt tolerance test and storage stability was performed. On analyzing the results it was found that, the skim milk alginate beads had the efficiency of 96.48%. The bacteria encapsulated using skim milk alginate was more viable and more tolerant towards bile salt. The storage stability test was carried out for a period of 28 days and it was found that the probiotic encapsulated using skim milk alginate were more viable. From the results it was concluded that skim milk alginate was a stronger encapsulating material than alginate because of the strong network forming nature of milk proteins.