Abstract
Lactococcus lactis has been used historically in fermentation and food preservation processes as it is considered safe for human consumption (GRAS—Generally Recognized As Safe). Nowadays, in addition to its wide use in the food industry, L. lactis has been used as a bioreactor for the production of molecules of medical interest, as well as vectors for DNA delivery. These applications are possible due to the development of promising genetic tools over the past few decades, such as gene expression, protein targeting systems, and vaccine plasmids. Thus, this review presents some of these genetic tools and their evolution, which allow us to envision new biotechnological and therapeutic uses of L. lactis. Constitutive and inductive expression systems will be discussed, many of which have been used successfully for heterologous production of different proteins, tested on animal models. In addition, advances in the construction of new plasmids to be used as potential DNA vaccines, delivered by this microorganism, will also be viewed. Finally, we will focus on the scene of gene expression systems known as “food-grade systems” based on inducing compounds and safe selection markers, which eliminate the need for the use of compounds harmful to humans or animal health and potential future prospects for their applications.
Highlights
Reviewed by: Priti Desai, Institute of Advanced Research, India Catherine Daniel, Institut Pasteur de Lille, France
We will focus on the scene of gene expression systems known as “food-grade systems” based on inducing compounds and safe selection markers, which eliminate the need for the use of compounds harmful to humans or animal health and potential future prospects for their applications
Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) constitute a diverse group of Gram-positive microorganisms, including species of genera Lactobacillus, Lactococcus, Streptococcus, Pediococcus Leuconostoc, and Oenococcus, which, among other shared characteristics, have the capacity to convert sugars into lactic acid (Makarova and Koonin, 2007). Because they have long been used in fermentation and food preservation processes, most of these bacteria are considered safe for human consumption, possessing the GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) status
Summary
Lactococcus lactis has been used historically in fermentation and food preservation processes as it is considered safe for human consumption (GRAS—Generally Recognized As Safe). In addition to its wide use in the food industry, L. lactis has been used as a bioreactor for the production of molecules of medical interest, as well as vectors for DNA delivery These applications are possible due to the development of promising genetic tools over the past few decades, such as gene expression, protein targeting systems, and vaccine plasmids. This system uses a promoter of the L. lactis groESL operon, whose expression is induced under stress conditions, which does not need exogenous induction, nor the presence of regulatory genes (Benbouziane et al, 2013)
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