Lactobacillus acidophilus loaded pickering double emulsion with enhanced viability and colon-adhesion efficiency

Abstract The bioactive efficiency of probiotics in human body is usually jeopardized due to their poor stability during storage and oral digestion processes. Herein, we designed a W1/O/W2 type Pickering emulsion (PDE) for the encapsulation and colon-targeted delivery of Lactobacillus acidophilus (LA). The “bubble in bubble” structure and encapsulation of viable LA in the W1 compartment were maintained during 14 days’ storage, suggesting the enhanced stability of PDE. Encapsulated LA exhibited remarkable improvement in survival rate under acidic condition and slightly enhanced tolerance towards basic environment. The superiority of PDE was magnified by the high survival rate (84.24%) of LA after sequential gastric and intestinal digestion comparing to the free LA that showed undetectable level of viability, demonstrating the beneficial effect rooting from the sequential release property of PDE. Finally, LA released from PDE showed three times higher colon-adhesion efficiency than that of free LA. The present study offers an alternative probiotics supplement formulation with enhanced viability and colon-adhesion efficiency via a W1/O/W2 type Pickering emulsion encapsulation strategy.