Determination Of Optimum Encapsulation Method of Bacillus Subtilis Probiotic Into Bacterial Cellulose Made By K. Intermedius

Abstract

Bacterial cellulose (BC) is well known in the medical field to be able to speed up the process of wound healing. It also has many advantages that make it a very appealing potential as a wound healing product. The issue with BC is the lack of antimicrobial activity against pathogens on the wound site which can cause an infection. Encapsulation of B. subtilis (BS) as a probiotic into BC would allow for antimicrobial activity, but the best method of encapsulating BS was not identified yet. The best method could be standardized for encapsulating BS into BC for future studies. This study aims to identify the best method of encapsulating BS cells into BC between adsorption-incubation, injection-incubation, and co-culture, whilst also evaluating its antimicrobial activity against 2 very common skin pathogens, S. aureus and P. aeruginosa. The probiotic loading number (PLN) was taken to find the best method, whilst the type of antimicrobial activity was identified. Results show that the injection-incubation method had the highest PLN of 1.9 x 1017 CFU/g, indicating that this is the best method to encapsulate BS into BC.. The antimicrobial tests show that the BS-BC composite is bactericidal against S. aureus and bacteriostatic against P. aeruginosa, indicating that the BS-BC composite also has antimicrobial activity, allowing it to potentially be used in wound healing applications.