Advances in polysaccharide-based biopolymers for probiotic encapsulation: From single polysaccharides to composite systems.

Probiotics, as beneficial microorganisms, are critical to host health. However, their viability is often compromised during processing, storage, and gastrointestinal transit, significantly compromises their colonization efficacy and therapeutic potential. Polysaccharides have emerged as pivotal materials for probiotic encapsulation due to their excellent biocompatibility, biodegradability, and unique functional properties. This review systematically examines traditional polysaccharide-based encapsulation technologies, such as embedding and coating techniques, highlighting limitations of single-polysaccharide systems, including excessive porosity, inadequate mechanical strength, suboptimal encapsulation efficiency, and poor targeted release precision. In contrast to previous research focused on single polysaccharides, this review focuses on composite polysaccharide encapsulation systems, particularly polysaccharide-polysaccharide hybrids and polysaccharide-protein complexes, which effectively address the limitations of single-polysaccharide systems in probiotic encapsulation while significantly enhancing encapsulation performance. Furthermore, it investigates the advantages of prebiotic incorporation in promoting probiotic proliferation and suppressing pathogenic microorganisms, providing novel optimization strategies for delivery systems. These findings establish critical theoretical and technical foundations for translating these advancements into functional foods and oral pharmaceutical formulations.