Immobilization Technologies in Probiotic Food Production

Table 3

Criteria used to define a probiotic microorganism.

Safety criteria	Be of human origin
	Nonpathogenic in nature
	Generally recognized as safe (GRAS)
Functional criteria	Be resistant to destruction by gastric acid and bile salts
	Adhere to intestinal epithelial tissue
	Be able to colonize the gastrointestinal tract, even in the short term
	Modulate immune responses
	Produce antimicrobial substances
	Influence human metabolic activities (i.e., cholesterol assimilation, lactase activity, vitamin production, etc.)
Technological criteria	Be resistant to destruction by technical processing
	Be subjected to scale-up processes