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Abstract
Fungal-assisted cell immobilization has emerged as a promising approach for food, energy and environmental applications, utilizing the hyphal network of filamentous fungi to encapsulate microorganisms. Co-encapsulation of multiple microorganisms within fungal pellets enables the development of food delivery systems that combine complementary functional and nutritional properties, including enhanced probiotic protection and delivery of bioactive compounds. This study used edible filamentous fungus Aspergillus awamori to encapsulate Haematococcus pluvialis microalgae and Lacticaseibacillus casei lactic acid bacteria (LAB) for probiotic delivery. Both active and heat-deactivated pellets successfully co-encapsulated microalgae and LAB, although low shear conditions were required for inactive fungal states. Under in-vitro simulated gastrointestinal conditions co-encapsulation significantly enhanced L. casei survival compared to encapsulated and free bacteria controls across all gastrointestinal phases. These findings demonstrate the potential of edible filamentous fungus as effective scaffold for multi-species encapsulation enabling simultaneous delivery of probiotics and bioactive compounds with improved protective efficacy and functionality.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2026
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jff.2026.107312
Funding Information
This work was supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, award #2023-67017-40744 and Hatch-Multistate project under accession number 7006742. This work was performed in part at the U.K. Electron Microscopy Cener, a member of the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI), which is supported by the National Science Foundation (NNCI-2025075).
Repository Citation
Talukdar, Suvro and Barzee, Tyler J., "Co-encapsulation of microalgae Haematococcus pluvialis and lactic acid bacteria Lacticaseibacillus casei via filamentous fungi scaffolds improved probiotic viability in simulated gastro-intestinal conditions" (2026). Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Faculty Publications. 259.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/bae_facpub/259
Notes/Citation Information
1756-4646/© 2026 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).