Fermentation method for production of heterologous gene products in lactic acid bacteria

Abstract

The invention provides a fed-batch or continuous process for producing heterologous peptides, polypeptides or proteins in lactic acid bacteria, comprising the steps of (i) constructing a recombinant lactic acid bacterium comprising a nucleotide sequence coding for the heterologous peptide, polypeptide or protein, and appropriate regulatory nucleotide sequences such as regulatable promoters and signal peptides to control the expression of the coding sequence and the secretion of gene product, (ii) cultivating the recombinant bacterium under or continuous cultivation conditions to express the gene, and (iii) harvesting the recombinant bacterium or the gene product. Preferably, the cultivation medium is a chemically defined or synthetic medium optionally supplemented with yeast extract.