Patent Application: US-12792105-A

Abstract:
the invention relates to a recombinant lactobacillus strain , with limited growth and viability in the environment . more particularly , it relates to a recombinant lactobacillus that can only survive in a medium , where well - defined medium compounds , preferably thymidine or thymine , are present . a preferred embodiment is a lactobacillus that may only survive in a host organism , where the medium compounds are present , but cannot survive outside the host organism in absence of the medium compounds . moreover , the lactobacillus strain can be transformed with prophylactic and / or therapeutic molecules and can , as such , be used to treat diseases such as , but not limited to , inflammatory bowel diseases .

Description:
on the base of the lactobacillus casei or the lactobacillus plantarum sequence , the thy a gene is localized in l . salivarius , or any other suitable lactobacillus species . starting from this sequence , the sequences adjacent to the thy a gene are cloned and sequenced . the knowledge of these sequences is of critical importance for the genetic engineering of any lactobacillus strain in a way as described below , as the strategy will employ double homologous recombination in the areas 1000 bp at the 5 ′ end and 1000 bp at the 3 ′ end of thya , the “ thya target .” these sequences are not available from any public source to date . we have cloned these flanking dna fragments and have identified their sequence . the thya replacement is performed by homologous recombination , essentially as described by biwas et al . ( 1993 ). suitable replacements in a plasmid - borne version of the thya target are made , as described below . the carrier plasmid is a replication - defective plasmid , which only transfers the erythromycin resistance to a given strain when a first homologous recombination occurs at either the 5 ′ 1000 bp or at the 3 ′ 1000 bp of the thya target . a second homologous recombination at the 3 ′ 1000 bp or at the 5 ′ 1000 bp of the thya target yields the desired strain . alternatively , a recombinase - assisted inrecombination may be used . this allows the use of shorter 5 ′ and 3 ′ sequences . the thya gene is replaced by a synthetic gene encoding a protein that has a secretion leader , functional in lactobacillus , fused to a protein of identical amino acid sequence than : ( a ) the mature part of human - interleukin 10 ( hil - 10 ) or ( b ) the mature part of hil - 10 in which proline at position 2 had been replaced with alanine . the resulting strains are thya deficient , a mutant not yet described for l . salivarius . it is strictly dependent upon the addition of thymine or thymidine for growth . the region around the inserted hil - 10 gene is isolated by pcr and the dna sequence is verified . the structure is identical to the predicted sequence . human interleukin - 10 production in the mutants is checked by western blot analysis and compared with the parental strain , transformed with an empty plasmid as negative control , and the parental strain , transformed with the il - 10 - producing plasmid as positive control . the concentration in the culture supernatant is quantified using elisa . all isolates of the mutant produce a comparable , significant amount of hil - 10 , be it less than the strain , transformed with the non - integrative plasmid . quantification of hil - 10 present in the culture supernatant of the indicated strains is done by elisa . the n - terminal protein sequence of the recombinant hil - 10 is determined by edman degradation and is shown identical to the structure as predicted for the mature , recombinant hil - 10 . the protein shows full biological activity . the effect of the thymidilate synthase deletion on the growth in thymidine - less and thymidine - supplemented media is tested . absence of thymidine in the medium strongly limits the growth of the mutant and even results in a decrease of colony - forming units after four hours of cultivation in absence of thymidine or thymine . addition of thymidine to the medium results in an identical growth curve and amount of colony - forming units , compared to the wild - type strain , indicating that the mutant does not affect the growth or viability in thymidine - supplemented medium . mouse experiments are carried out , proving that the l . salivarius thya mutant is able to survive in the ileum of the mice , but cannot survive outside the intestine . the colony count of the mutant in the feces drops dramatically , when compared to the wild type strain , indicating that the strain is a useful tool for delivery in the intestine under conditions of biological containment . identification of the thymidylate synthase ( thya ) regio in lactobacillus species based on the publication of kleerebezem et al ., 2003 , we had web - based access to the complete genome sequence of lactobacillus plantarum wcfs1 . based on a blastn between the complete genome of the lactobacillus plantarum wcfs1 and the thya gene of e . coli k12 , we identified the thya gene in lactobacillus . based on these published thya dna sequences of l . plantarum , wcfs1 degenerate oligonucleotides are synthesized to be used as primers for dna sequencing of the thya gene of any particular lactobacillus species . once the sequence of the thya gene of that particular lactobacillus species is known , oligonucleotides are designed as primers for dna sequencing of the 5 ′ and 3 ′ flanking regions of the thya gene . the identification of the 5 ′ and 3 ′ flanking regions ( a stretch of 50 nucleotides upstream and downstream of the thya gene is sufficient ) is necessary for the gene replacement of the thya gene by the human interleukin - 10 gene ( hil - 10 gene ). the system of gene - replacement that is used in lactobacillus is an adaptation of a system introduced by datsenko et al . ( 2000 ). this is a simple and highly efficient method to disrupt chromosomal genes in escherichia coli . in this procedure , pcr primers provide the homology to the targeted gene ( s ) and recombination depends on the phage λ red recombinases , which are synthesized under the control of an arabinose - inducible promoter on an easily curable , low copy number plasmid , plasmid pkd46 ( fig1 ). this recombination pathway not only ensures that , after electroporation of the linear pcr fragment into the cell , the linear dna is not instantly degraded , but it also allows an efficient gene replacement by a double cross - over with a limited homology of only 36 to 50 nucleotides to the regions adjacent to the gene that need to be replaced . the pkd46 plasmid is an e . coli plasmid . to adapt this method to lactobacillus , it is necessary that the λ red recombinases are subcloned into a plasmid that can replicate in lactobacillus . the λ red recombinase operon is subcloned in the broad host shuttle vector pori19 ( fig2 ; law et al ., 1995 ). pori19 is preferred because it is based on the conditional replicon of the lactococcal pwv01 - derived ori + repa − vector . due to the fact that the pori19 is missing the repa gene , it is replication deficient . for the replication of the pori19 plasmid , the helper plasmid pve6007 ( maguin et al ., 1992 ) needs to provide the repa - ts protein in trans . the replication of the helper plasmid pve6007 is temperature sensitive . a temperature of 30 ° c . is permissive for the replication of the plasmid , while a temperature shift to 37 ° c . abolishes its replication and induces the loss of the plasmid . the loss of the helper plasmid pve6007 results in the loss of the pori19 plasmid . assembly of pori19 - derived plasmids is carried out in the e . coli helper strain ec101 , which has the repa gene genomically integrated . pori - red is the pori19 plasmid in which the λ red recombinase operon from the vector pkd46 is subcloned under control of the arabinose inducible promotor . all the constructs are made in the e . coli helper strain ec 101 . by use of pcr , the λ red recombinase operon is amplified ( fig3 ). the primers of the pcr are designed in such a way that a pvui site is introduced at the 5 ′ end of the operon and an xbai site is introduced at the 3 ′ end . this pcr fragment is cut by a combined digestion of pvui and xbai and ligated in by the pvui and xbai linearized pori19 vector . this ligated plasmid is electroporated to the e . coli helper strain ec101 ( for construction scheme , fig3 ). prior to gene replacement of the thya gene by hil - 10 , we prepare competent cells of the lactobacillus strain and introduce the plasmids pve6007 and pori - red by electroporation . because of the temperature sensitivity of the plasmid pve6007 , all manipulations are conducted at 30 ° c . the introduction of these two plasmids in the lactobacillus species is done in two steps . in the first step , the plasmid pve6007 is electroporated in the electrocompetent lactobacillus strain . chloramphenicol is added to the medium to ensure the stability of pve6007 . the resulting lactobacillus strain is made electrocompetent again and the plasmid pori - red is electroporated in this lactobacillus strain , using erythromycin as the selectable marker . the resulting lactobacillus strain harboring pve6007 and pori - red is made electrocompetent by an adapted protocol . thereto , an overnight lactobacillus culture is 1 / 100 diluted in 250 ml mrs ( difco )+ erythromycin and chloramphenicol , and 1 mm l - arabinose added . this ensures that the arabinose promotor of the pori - red plasmid is activated and that the three λ red recombinases are expressed which makes recombination possible in the next step . as described in fig4 , a linear pcr fragment is used for the gene replacement of the genomic thya gene by the hil - 10 gene . for the pcr reaction , primers with 36 - to 50 - nucleotide extensions homologous to regions adjacent to the genomic thya gene are used and a plasmid that carries the hil - 10 is used as template . this pcr was carried out on the template plasmid ptlhil10 with the sense primer 5 ′ thya and the antisense primer 3 ′ thya ( fig4 , step 1 ). the resulting pcr product is cleaned up with the qiagen qiaquick pcr purification kit ( cat . # 28104 ). this purified pcr product is digested by dpni for one hour to remove residual template ( the plasmid ptlhil10 ). afterwards , the pcr product is fenol / chloroform extracted and precipitated by ethanol with the aid of see dna ( amersham biotech , cat . # rpn 5200 ). the resulting pcr product pellet is dissolved in 5 μl te buffer ( tris - edta ). the pcr fragment that was generated in step 1 , together with a selection plasmid , are now electroporated in the electrocompetent lactobacillus strain containing the plasmids pve6007 and pori - red . the 5 μl pcr mixture and the selection plasmid are mixed with 100 μl electrocompetent lactobacillus cells . the cells are electroporated with a biorad genepulser ™ ii using the following conditions : 50 μf , 1 . 7 kv , 200 ω whereafter 1 ml mrs + 50 μg / ml thymidine is added to the cells . this lactobacillus cell mixture is kept for two hours at 37 ° c . these two hours allow gene replacement of the genomic lactobacillus thya gene by the hil - 10 gene with the aid of the λ red recombinases . by growing the cells at 37 ° c ., the plasmid pve6007 is inhibited in its replication and is lost , resulting in the subsequent loss of pori - red . after the two hours of incubation at 37 ° c ., the lactobacillus suspension is plated out at 30 ° c . on three mrs plates ( 350 μl per plate ) containing 50 μg / ml thymidine and the antibiotic for which the selection plasmid specifies resistance . this step eliminates those cells in the electroporation mixture that were not competent for dna uptake and provides a considerable enrichment for progeny cells derived from the fraction of competent cells that have taken up the selection plasmid . these have a high probability of also having taken up the linear pcr fragment generated in step 1 . identification of a thya − and il - 10 + lactobacillus primary thya − and il - 10 + selection by pcr the primary screening of the lactobacillus colonies carrying a hil - 10 insert is done by colony pcr screening . a small part of each lactobacillus colony is added to the respective pcr master mix . two different pcr screenings are conducted on each lactobacillus colony . the first pcr screening is the one where the primers are indicated by 1 and 2 on fig4 , step 2 . in the negative colonies ( no pcr product ), the thya gene is removed from the lactobacillus genome and lactobacillus strain is thya negative . the second pcr screening is one with the primers 1 and 3 on fig4 , step 3 . positive colonies ( a pcr product of approximately 1000 bp ) are isolated . in these colonies , the lactobacillus strain carries a genomically integrated copy of the hil - 10 gene . confirmation of the thya − and il - 10 + properties of the lactobacillus by southern blot from the positive lactobacillus colonies , a genomic dna preparation is made . the genomic lactobacillus dna is digested by spei and ndei and southern blotted . the blot is revealed with digoxygenin - labeled probes for identifying thya ( thya probe ) or hil - 10 ( hil - 10 probe ). as expected based on the pcr results , the thya probe signal is negative and the hil - 10 probe signal on the blot is positive . production of human il - 10 by the thya − and il - 10 + lactobacillus to evaluate the hil - 10 secretion , the strain is grown in buffered minimal medium ( bm9 ) that contains 50 μg / ml thymidine . after 12 hours of growth at 37 ° c . of 4 × 10 7 cells , the medium is tested for the prevalence of human il - 10 by western blot and elisa . the lactobacillus strain is secreting a sufficient amount of human il - 10 in the culture supernatant to be used in in vivo experiments . for use in in vivo experiments , the thya − and il - 10 + lactobacillus strain is preferably free of any resident plasmid . this can be accomplished by successive rounds of curing ( reviewed in : de vos , 1987 ). ahmad , s . i ., s . h . kirk and a . eisenstark ( 1998 ) thymine metabolism and thymineless death in prokaryotes and eukaryotes . annu . rev . microbiol . 52 : 591 - 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