Development and in vitro evaluation of a carrier system containing probiotics for oral delivery

Within the scope of this thesis, an attempt was made to develop a drug delivery system targeted to the colon, using microfluidic systems, which is a current technology, for the treatment of Ulcerative Colitis, a chronic inflammatory bowel disease that affects the region from the colon to the rectum. For this purpose, w/o emulsions were prepared in which Lactobacillus casei, one of the probiotics that has been shown to effectively alleviate the symptoms of ulcerative colitis patients in recent years, and Mesalazine, used as a first-line treatment for mild or moderate ulcerative colitis, were encapsulated in cocoa butter, separately and in combination. These emulsions, obtained with microfluidic chips preferred to minimize the loss of live bacteria, were filled into enteric capsules so that they can be taken orally and targeted to the colon. In the prepared emulsion system, viability tests for probiotics and analytical method development and validation studies were carried out using UPLC for mesalazine. For the enteric capsule, studies were carried out to optimize the amount of probiotic and mesalazine it contained, to determine the release profile, and the cytotoxicity of mesalazine-containing capsules was investigated on HUVEC cells.