Lactobacillus plantarum Mut-7 is a probiotic candidate isolated from gatot, traditional fermented cassava from Java, Indonesia. This study aimed to evaluate safety aspects of high dose consumption of L. plantarum Mut-7 (10 11 CFU/ml/day) on Sprague Dawley rats for 21 days. Twenty four female rats were randomly divided into 4 groups; initial condition group (P.0), control group (P.1), skim milk group (P.2) and probiotics group (P.3). All groups followed adaptation phase of 7 days, followed by treatment phase of 21 days for P.1, P.2 and P.3. The results showed that supplementation of high dose of L. plantarum Mut-7 did not have detrimental effects on general health, organ weight, hematology and histology parameters of treated rats. Feed intake and body weight showed no significant difference between groups. L. plantarum Mut-7 can survive in gastrointestinal tract of rats, resulting in an increased population of L. plantarum in the fecal matter and the digesta of treated rats. Bacterial translocation of L. plantarum Mut-7 was not detected in the blood and organ of treated rats as confirmed by rep-PCR with BOXAIR primer and further 16S RNA gene sequencing analysis. Twenty-six isolates from blood and organs of treated rats had low-level similarity (<75%) to that of L. plantarum Mut-7, with 10 isolates were further analyzed and found that none of them belong to L. plantarum. Although this study was limited to the use of animal study, the findings are useful to support the safety assessment of the use of L. plantarum Mut-7 as a probiotic according to the abovementioned parameters.

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The Soxhlet and maceration methods were used to determine the extract yield in the carotenoid pigment encapsulation for halal natural pigment production. This study aims to obtain halal natural pigment by determining the highest extract yield from the encapsulation of β-carotene in carrots. The carrot was extracted using Soxhlet and maceration method and then continued by oven drying. The n-hexane was selected because of its better volatility than ethanol and provided less solvent residue after extraction. UV-Vis spectroscopy and Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC) were used to characterize the n-hexane yield extract. Encapsulation of the pigment was investigated by adding five grams of maltodextrin to extract n-hexane weights of 0.05, 0.50, 0.75, and 1.0 grams. The maceration method yielded a much higher yield than the Soxhlet extraction method, with 2.24% (w/w) and 0.88% (w/w), respectively. The n-hexane extract absorbed a maximum wavelength of 450 nm with a retention factor (Rf) of 0.62. These values are confirmed by comparing the band's Rf values and absorption spectra with the standard’s. Light absorption spectra at wavelengths 350-500 nm confirmed an intense color expression for encapsulation containing the highest pigment concentration.