PROJECT TITLE : Construction of recombinant bacteria for vaccine delivery

Background Summary

Vaccine studies in Malaysia have gone a long way since the development of the first vaccine for chicken in 1956. In 1989, UPM successfully developed a new technology in the production of Newcastle Disease Vaccine especially for free roaming village chickens (Aini, 1989). UPM has also developed another vaccine in 1995, namely, tissue-culture fowl pox vaccine. Whilst these vaccines are successfully given to the targeted chickens through feed, the vaccines used are derived from killed or attenuated whole viruses.

Genetic engineering offers a variety a approaches to the preparation of suitable vaccines where extensive research is being undertaken in Europe for the development of vaccine delivery systems using bacteria and viruses a vectors. Recombinant DNA technology has opened up new alleys for improving the products at hand. Multiple/ single epitope presentation can be made possible using these techniques. Therefor, with the already existing facilities and a group of research expertise in vaccine technology, the research in UPM is now geared towards genetically engineering bacterial recombinants with specific/multiple epitopes for chicken viruses.

 

 

 

Methods

Development of a bacterial expression system (lactococcal system, E.coli, Bacillus)-selection, identification, cloning and sequencing the genes of interest-cloning of recombinants into expression vectors, transformation and analyses of expressed proteins-studying recombinant bacterial growth in chicken -immunigenecity test in vitro and in vivo.

Objective Achievement

1. The candidates genes were succesfully cloned into E.coli and Lactococcus sp.

Benefits of the project

• Output
  1. Identification of an expression vector for the Lactococci
  2. Novel and improved vaccine delivery system for chickens
  3. Knowledge on immunology of Lactococci

• Beneficiries
  1. Training of research scientists in development of novel vaccine delivery system using molecular biology techniques
  2. Improved vaccine delivery system for the poultry industry.

Project Status

-Completed