Electrosprayed mucoadhesive alginate-chitosan microcapsules for gastrointestinal delivery of probiotics

Besides viability protection, a sufficiently prolonged gastrointestinal retention of probiotics has emerged as critically important in improving the functional effectiveness of gastrointestinal delivery of these microorganisms. In this work, we formulated pure, resistant starch-reinforced and chitosan-coated alginate microparticles using an electrospray technique and evaluated their performance as mucoadhesive probiotic formulations for gastrointestinal delivery.

In addition, we designed and successfully validated a novel experimental set-up ofin vitro洗掉mucoadhesion测试,使用一种可移植的、low-cost USB microscope for fluorescence imaging. In our test, pure chitosan microparticles (positive control) exhibited the greatest mucoadhesive property, whereas the alginate-resistant starch ones (negative control) were the least retentive on a gastric mucosa. These electrosprayed formulations were spherically shaped, with a size range of 30–600 µm (60–1300 µm with chitosancoating).

Moreover, model probioticLactobacillus plantarumloaded in alginate-starch formulations was better protected against simulated gastric conditions than in alginate ones, but not better than in the chitosan-coated ones.Continue reading on Electrosprayed mucoadhesive alginate-chitosan microcapsules for gastrointestinal delivery of probiotics