Synbiotic Encapsulation: A Trend towards Increasing Viability and Probiotic Effect

Probiotics are effective coadjuvancy against human affections. To confer their beneficial effects to humans, probiotics adhere and colonize the intestine. Then, they must survive the gastrointestinal conditions (similar to 10(8)-10(10) cfu/day). However, their concentration and the dose to produce the beneficial effect are reduced. Synbiotics are the combination of probiotics and prebiotics, and they can increase the beneficial effect of probiotics. Microencapsulation is an efficient approach to protect synbiotics during their passage through the intestinal tract. In this article, we thoroughly reviewed the different encapsulation techniques of synbiotics. The most common were ionic gelation, emulsification, extrusion, spray drying, coacervation, freeze drying, and their combination in some cases. These techniques focus on survival under gastrointestinal conditions. The aim of this work was to review the different techniques of synbiotic encapsulation and discuss the effect of microencapsulation on viability and probiotic properties in in vitro and in vivo models of microencapsulated synbiotics.