Designing and developing a programmable in vitro gastrointestinal model to assess the impact of pasteurization on the bioaccessibility of lycopene nanoparticles

To evaluate potential health impact of engineered nanoparticles, evaluation of digestion effect is necessary. Digestion requires micro-management and sequential execution of complex enzymatic mechanisms with controlled human digestion environment. The objective of this study was to develop an automated in-vitro digestive system to assess bio-accessibility of encapsulated lycopene nanoparticles in model fruit juice. Lycopene was encapsulated in polylactic acid (PLA-LNP) and polylactic co-glycolic acid (PLGA-LNP) and evaluated the bio-accessibility in a programmable in-vitro human digestive system operated with high sensitivity (25–30μs) and volume accuracy (97.37–100%). Pasteurized Model juice containing PLA-LNP, revealing higher bio-accessibility (100%) compared to PLGA-LNP (73%) counterparts. Absorption profile of both types of nanoparticles followed Korsmeyer-Peppas diffusion model at R² value of 0.98. All types of nanoparticles with different treatments followed non-Fickian types of diffusion except PLGA-PLA with microwave pasteurization. This automated in-vitro digestive system holds significant potential for advancing drug discovery and delivery studies in the future.