Publicação
Development of bacteriophage-loaded microstructures using Microfluidics
| Resumo: | Over time, in developed countries, people have become more concerned about the safety of the food they eat, and so, there has been a growing demand for convenience products, followed by fresh-cut fruits and vegetables. Unhygienic practices in preparation of fresh-cut products may pose risks to public health by causing foodborne illnesses, due to microbial contamination. Many of the outbreaks associated with foodborne diseases, are related to contamination of the food products by pathogenic microorganisms, such as Salmonella and Listeria monocytogenes. The use of bacteriophages emerges as a possible solution to reduce and eliminate the bacterial load of these microorganisms present in foods, since these kind of viruses, are safe for human consumption and specific for certain microorganisms, which makes them excellent tools for food safety purposes. However, it is known that bacteriophages lose viability throughout storage and after application, due to environmental conditions such as pH, temperature, ions, salinity, osmotic pressure and exposure to organic solvents, and as such it is essential to find protection methodologies so that they maintain full activity when added directly to food products. Microencapsulation, arises as a solution, yet, in an economic point of view, some of the actual encapsulation methods are expensive, and others use temperature during the process which unviable their use for bacteriophages encapsulation. So, there’s a need to find a new cost-effective microencapsulation technology, for production of bacteriophage-loaded microcapsules, being that microfluidics, emerge as a viable solution. The main objective of this work, consist in the use of microfluidics to generate microstructures with food grade biopolymers (agarose), loaded with a natural antibacterial agent, the bacteriophages. The droplet formation process was optimized and the “On-Chip” and “Off-Chip mixing” techniques developed, followed by the characterization of the obtained droplets, where it was verified that a size of 85 μm was achieved using the On-Chip technique. A high-throughput formation of monodisperse agarose beads, in a very controlled and automated way, was accomplished, being that the entire production process malleable. A phage release of about 60% was obtained in the first 5 minutes, without the need of any external triggers. In conclusion, the developed technology opens a new path for the deployment of new products for food safety purposes. |
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| Autores principais: | Passos, Luís Filipe Alves |
| Assunto: | Bacteriophage Encapsulation Microfluidics Bacteriófago Encapsulação Microfluidica |
| Ano: | 2018 |
| País: | Portugal |
| Tipo de documento: | dissertação de mestrado |
| Tipo de acesso: | acesso aberto |
| Instituição associada: | Universidade do Minho |
| Idioma: | inglês |
| Origem: | RepositóriUM - Universidade do Minho |
| Resumo: | Over time, in developed countries, people have become more concerned about the safety of the food they eat, and so, there has been a growing demand for convenience products, followed by fresh-cut fruits and vegetables. Unhygienic practices in preparation of fresh-cut products may pose risks to public health by causing foodborne illnesses, due to microbial contamination. Many of the outbreaks associated with foodborne diseases, are related to contamination of the food products by pathogenic microorganisms, such as Salmonella and Listeria monocytogenes. The use of bacteriophages emerges as a possible solution to reduce and eliminate the bacterial load of these microorganisms present in foods, since these kind of viruses, are safe for human consumption and specific for certain microorganisms, which makes them excellent tools for food safety purposes. However, it is known that bacteriophages lose viability throughout storage and after application, due to environmental conditions such as pH, temperature, ions, salinity, osmotic pressure and exposure to organic solvents, and as such it is essential to find protection methodologies so that they maintain full activity when added directly to food products. Microencapsulation, arises as a solution, yet, in an economic point of view, some of the actual encapsulation methods are expensive, and others use temperature during the process which unviable their use for bacteriophages encapsulation. So, there’s a need to find a new cost-effective microencapsulation technology, for production of bacteriophage-loaded microcapsules, being that microfluidics, emerge as a viable solution. The main objective of this work, consist in the use of microfluidics to generate microstructures with food grade biopolymers (agarose), loaded with a natural antibacterial agent, the bacteriophages. The droplet formation process was optimized and the “On-Chip” and “Off-Chip mixing” techniques developed, followed by the characterization of the obtained droplets, where it was verified that a size of 85 μm was achieved using the On-Chip technique. A high-throughput formation of monodisperse agarose beads, in a very controlled and automated way, was accomplished, being that the entire production process malleable. A phage release of about 60% was obtained in the first 5 minutes, without the need of any external triggers. In conclusion, the developed technology opens a new path for the deployment of new products for food safety purposes. |
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