Behringwerke Aktiengesellschaft

Nascacell Technologies Ag

Harald Kolmar

Alexander Wentzel

Hans-Joachim Fritz

Andreas Christmann

Frank Hennecke

The inventive method allows peptides or polypeptides to be exposed on the surface of gram-negative host bacteria using specific intimin-based anchor modules. Intimins with shortened carboxy terminals have been found to be particularly suitable anchor modules for passenger domains in the exteriorcell membrane. According to the method, host bacteria are transformed using vectors, on which are located a fused nucleic acid sequence consisting of a sequence segment which codes for an intimin with a shortened carboxy terminal and a nucleic acid sequence segment which codes for the passenger peptide that is to be exposed. The invention permits a particularly large number of passenger domains to be exposed on the cell surface of the bacteria, without adversely affecting the viability of the bacteria.

Method for exposing peptides and polypeptides on the cell surface of bacteria

The invention relates to a process for the genetic selection in microorganisms of proteins which are capable of ligand binding, in which process a protein which is capable of ligand binding is presented extracytoplasmically and the signal of the ligand binding is passed on by signal transduction to the biosynthetic machinery of the micoorganism for the purpose of expressing a detectable and/or selectable function. In addition to this, the patent discloses microorganisms which are suitable for use in this process, as well as replicons and processes for their preparation.

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Gottingen, Germany

Harald Kolmar