2002 Volume 20 Issue 4 Pages 121-129
Some of the lactic acid bacteria (LAB) have been considered to contribute to human health and are used in foods and pharmaceutical products as probiotics. Basic studies on the specific effects of these bacteria and their mechanisms of action are indispensable to the verification of their effectiveness. The development of molecular biological techniques plays an important role in the advancement of these studies.Lactobacillus caseistrain Shirota is a lactic acid bacterium isolated from the human intestine and has been used industrially as a probiotic strain, whose beneficial effects on humans and animals, including an immunomodulatory function, are well documented. This report summarizes the developmental situation of genetic manipulation inL. caseistrain Shirota as follows: 1) transformation and plasmid vectors, 2) a system using an integration-excision vector to maintain desired sequences safely and stably on its chromosome, and 3) experimental display of a chimeric protein on the cell surface of the strain Shirota.
