Using Spent Brewer's Yeast to Encapsulate and Enhance the Bioavailability of Sonochemically Nanostructured Curcumin

This study is aimed at investigating the possibility of using spent cells of brewer's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae to encapsulate the plant antioxidant curcumin and the effect of such an approach on the bioavailability of BAS in an in vitro digestion model. Spent brewer's yeast is a significant volume organic waste that is difficult to dispose of, which makes additional options for its use very promising. Encapsulation of curcumin into spent yeast cells was carried out in a nanostructured manner. The encapsulation process was studied using laser dynamic light scattering, inverted and luminescence microscopy, and FTIR analysis. The efficiency and feasibility of curcumin encapsulation process was evaluated by determining the encapsulation efficiency index and modeling the in vitro digestion process. From these studies, it was found that spent yeast cells are capable of acting as a "delivery system" for curcumin. Encapsulation efficiencies of 47.7% can be achieved if curcumin is prenanostructured. Analysis of the potential bioavailability of the plant antioxidant in an in vitro gastric digestion model showed that the technology of encapsulation into yeast cells allows for curcumin retention of 79.5%.