Study of Bio-Encapsulation of lactobacillus species using cellulose

The present study was aimed to understand the better stability effects and higher tolerance range of cellulose encapsulated Lactobacillus in certain pH conditions over non-encapsulated Lactobacillus. The recommended dose of 106 to 109 cells/day was given by bioencapsulating 108 cells of Lactobacillus and CFU were assayed after 15 days and 30 days.The cellulose encapsulated Lactobacillus was found to be 80% and 90% viable after 15 and 30 days of storage respectively when compared to the nonencapsulated lactobacillus. From the stability test, the encapsulated capsule was found to be stable at low 2.5 pH and nonstable at 6.5 pH. The reason behind such stability is that the huge concentration of H+ ions does not affect the surface permeability and also the surface gets no threat from the OH- ions because the excess H+ ions shields the effect of the OH- ions from attacking the microcapsule. In higher pH conditions the concentration of OH- ions increase relatively and since the H+ ions cannot shield upto that effect as mentioned in the previous one, the capsular surface poses a threat and is bound to degrade and consequentially it fails to pass through the Gastrointestinal Tract of mammals. Bioencapsulation of lactobacillus with cellulose was also found to be antibiotic resistant and had a high tolerance range to phenol. From this study, it can be said that cellulose can be used to encapsulate Lactobacillus in place of alginate and cellulose encapsulated lactobacillus can pass through the GI tract of mammals and be released in the small intestine at much lower pH conditions.