Oral administration of probiotics orchestrates the balance between intestinal microbes and the immune response. However, effective delivery and in situ colonization are limited by the harsh environment of the gastrointestinal tract. Herein, we provide a microfluidics-derived encapsulation strategy to address this problem. A novel synergistic delivery system composed of EcN Nissle 1917 and prebiotics, including alginate sodium and inulin gel, for treating inflammatory bowel disease and colitis-associated colorectal cancer is proposed. We demonstrated that EcN@AN microparticles yielded promising gastrointestinal resistance for on-demand probiotic delivery and colon-retentive capability. EcN@AN microparticles efficiently ameliorated intestinal inflammation and modulated the gut microbiome in experimental colitis. Moreover, the prebiotic composition of EcN@AN enhanced the fermentation of relative short-chain fatty acid metabolites, a kind of postbiotics, to exert anti-inflammatory and tumor-suppressive effects in murine models. This microfluidcis-based approach for the coordinated delivery of probiotics and prebiotics may have broad implications for gastrointestinal bacteriotherapy applications.
Keywords: high-throughput microfluidic chips; inflammatory bowel disease; prebiotics; probiotics; short-chain fatty acids.