JOBIMB, 2019, Vol 7, No 1, 17-22 - 17 - Encapsulation of Lactobacillus plantarum with Mannan and Sodium Alginate Improves its Cell Production Muhamad Amin bin Jahari 1 *, Shuhaimi Mustafa 1,2 , Muhamad Akhmal Hakim Roslan 3 , Dhilia udie Lamasudin 2 and Yazid Abd Manap 1 1 Halal Products Research Institute, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia. 2 Faculty of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia. 3 Institute of Tropical Agriculture and Food Security, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia. *Corresponding author: Muhamad Amin bin Jahari Halal Products Research Institute, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia Tel: +03-97691830 Fax: +03-89439745 Email: muhamadamin@upm.edu.my INTRODUCTION Probiotics can be defined as small living organisms that serve as living feed supplement for the host by promoting the health of host intestinal [1]. Recently, the use of probiotic has been continually polished with health-promoting properties of aquatic animals [2-5]. A distinguish meaning of probiotic for aquatic life has been suggested as ‘relation between bacteria and host is not only restricted to the intestinal part, rather also involving nature of fish farming that deals with the waters harbours microbial communities’ [6]. According to author in [7], ‘probiotic for aquaculture is a live, dead or constituent of a bacterial cell that, when embodied via the feed or to the rearing water, profited the host by building up either disease safeguarding, health status, growth performance, feed utilisation, stress response or general vigour, which is achieved at least partly either by improving the hosts or the environmental microbial balance.” There are a lot of probiotic strains that were isolated from the aquatic animal including Lactobacillus plantarum, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus casei, and Streptococcus lactis [8]. According to authors in [9], probiotic that was added into feed can give several health benefits such as enhance immune system and improve the function of gastrointestinal. The application of probiotics has revealed a fresh beginning era in commercial fish farming and its solicitation are attaining development of commercial and scientific concern in which shows a relatively increase in health- promoting foods to growth supplements, prophylactic and therapeutic [10-13]. HISTORY Received: 15 th March 2019 Received in revised form: 27 th of April 2019 Accepted: 8 th of July 2019 ABSTRACT Probiotic bacteria are utilized in aquaculture as they exert a crucial function in promoting and maintaining the fish health. Probiotic strains should be present in a viable form during consumption and throughout the gastrointestinal tract for maximum health benefits. Many reports stated that there is poor survival of probiotic in products containing free probiotic cells. Providing probiotic living cells with physical barrier to resist adverse environmental conditions is therefore an approach currently receiving considerable interest. In this study, Lactobacillus plantarum was encapsulated with mannan and sodium alginate to increase probiotic viability. Response surface methodology (RSM) based on Box-Behnken design was used to optimize the encapsulation process with mannan concentration (5 to 30 % w/v) and sodium alginate concentration (1 to 5 % w/v) as the independent variables evaluated. According to the regression coefficients and significance of the polynomial model, the optimum encapsulation parameters were as follows: 24.73 % w/v mannan; 1.6 % w/v sodium alginate. Under these conditions of encapsulation, the total cell production of the Lactobacillus plantarum was increased to 5.3 (10 8 CFU/g) as compared to the free cell culture, 3.2 (10 8 CFU/g). KEYWORDS encapsulation Lactobacillus plantarum mannan oligosaccharides Response Surface Methodology JOURNAL OF BIOCHEMISTRY, MICROBIOLOGY AND BIOTECHNOLOGY Website: http://journal.hibiscuspublisher.com/index.php/JOBIMB/index JOBIMB VOL 7 NO 1 2019 Per ARNT SIM Domain Gene distribution in normal human testis cell