Title : Nanoencapsulation as an emerging technology to enhance functionality of postbiotics and parabiotics
Abstract:
The rising trend in functional foods benefiting the gut microbiome has led to the investigation of other bioactive components,such as postbiotics and parabiotics, which are essential strains of probiotics. Postbiotics are inanimate microorganisms of probiotics, including bioactive metabolites, while parabiotics are inactivated microbial cells possessing metabolically active components. They are now recognized as innovative microbiome-derived functional agents with enhanced safety and stability as probiotics efficacy requires ≥106 to 109 CFU per serving, but their viability is reduced by 2-6 log cycles by different processing methods, ≥90% in the gastric environment (pH 1.5-3.0), >50% at 40-50ºC of temperature while postbiotics and parabiotics perform biological activities independent of viability count. Moreover, recent studies suggest they also have enhanced anti-carcinogenic, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant effects as they retain their function even in inactive form. Although postbiotics and parabiotics possess enhanced bioavailability and stability their functional components, such as enzymes, peptides, and short-chain fatty acids are susceptible to degradation to some extent under processing treatments, storage, and gastric pH. Thus, also alters their sensory properties. Elevated temperature, oxidative reactions, water activity, and complex food matrix interactions may affect their efficiency. One of the advanced emerging technologies is nanoencapsulation, which overcomes the limitation of instability and non-bioavailability of functional components, especially in foods and pharmaceutical applications. It facilitates the physicochemical entrapment of postbiotic metabolites and parabiotics in nano-carriers, which are proven to improve their bioactivity, e.g. a fourfold increase in anti-microbial activity of postbiotic-derived bacteriocins. Nanoencapsulation techniques involves (1) Liposomes enabled controlled release (51.5% over 6 hours), increased thermal protection (14.8% to >70%) and extended shelf life (58.2 days to 138.6 days), (2) Nanoemulsions, increased bioavailability by 6 folds and solubility by 2 folds (3) Polymeric nanoparticles shown increase in solubility by 2-3 folds and antioxidant retention by 1.8 folds. Despite the enhanced potential of nanoencapsulation, industrial scalability, economic feasibility, regulatory approval, and consumer acceptance are still some of the challenges to overcome. Nevertheless, the integration of nanoengineered postbiotic functional components represents a strategic approach to improve stability, bioavailability, and controlled release at a significant level.
