Emulsion Gel for Intestine-Specific Enzyme-Triggered Release of Probiotics

Probiotics are crucial for building a healthy microbiota in the intestine. However, most probiotics could not survive when exposed to the acidic stomach condition after oral administration, imposing a significant barrier to their broad applications. Here, a water-in-oil jammed Pickering emulsion gel (JPEG) is prepared to encapsulate probiotics, which effectively protects probiotics from the harsh acidic condition and specifically releases them in the intestine. Probiotics-loaded JPEG (PL-JPEG) demonstrates good stability against centrifugation forces, pH changes, temperature changes, and over time, and shows good processability with a typical shear-thinning behavior. PL-JPEG could be encapsulated in core-shell microparticles by microfluidics to facilitate oral administration. Cell viability and optical density measurements confirm that the continuous oil phase of PL-JPEG could protect probiotics from direct contact with the acidic stomach condition, leading to a significant improvement in their survival rate as compared to unencapsulated probiotics. Probiotics are then released in the intestine through an enzyme-triggered mechanism, as the continuous oil phase is digested by lipase. The study successfully develops a probiotics-loaded emulsion gel system, offering a promising platform for the intestine-specific delivery of probiotics in functional foods and pharmaceutical formulations.