A review of biomaterials mediated probiotics delivery system in the field of inflammatory bowel disease treatment.

The pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is closely related to genetic, environmental, infection and immune factors, making it difficult to cure and resulting in damages to the intestinal mucosal barrier. The current treatment strategies for IBD merely alleviate clinical symptoms, but often fail to repair the intestinal mucosal barrier or interrupt the inflammatory cycle. Moreover, they may lead to the complication like infections and malignancy. Probiotics-based therapies have become the major approach to fight IBD, with the advantages of antagonizing harmful bacteria colonization, repairing intestinal barrier and improving intestinal microenvironment. However, the therapeutic potential of probiotics is limited by their susceptibility to stomach acid, insufficient capacity to eliminate excessive reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the hostile inflammatory microenvironment and the fact that the number of live probiotics colonizing in the intestine is lower than the minimum threshold for beneficial effects. In recent years, the probiotics delivery system constructed with biomaterials can simultaneously achieve targeted release, maintain probiotics activity and improve ROS scavenging ability, thereby disrupting the inflammatory cascade reaction and promoting the recovery of intestinal homeostasis, which bring good news for probiotics in IBD treatment. This study will summarize and review the advantages and disadvantages of various probiotics delivery system constructed based on biomaterials for IBD treatment, and provide insights into future trends in probiotics and their protective strategies.