Bifidobacteria as a New Live Delivery Vehicle

As previously mentioned. Bifidobacterium does not belong to the LAB group (Actinobacteria phylum) however, this genus shares many properties with lactobacilli, such as their probiotic characteristic and their ability to persist in the GIT for a long period of time. Bifidobacteria are also known to be a major component of mammals microbiota. Thus, these bacteria are excellent alternatives to be used as mucosal delivery vectors of heterologous proteins and to enhance innate and 

Over the last decades, the capacity of LAB to produce and deliver molecules, such as proteins and DNA of health interest, has been widely explored. As described previously, L. lactis currently remains the best candidate among LAB for mucosal approaches due to the ease and availability of genetics tools to transform this bacteria. Nevertheless, unlike Escherichia coli, which is a Gramnegative bacterium, LAB are still unique as they do not possess LipoPolySaccharides (LPS). LPS have a local inflammatory effect and are known to be involved in several diseases such as Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) and obesity. For this reason, LAB are better candidates as in vivo vehicles of recombinant proteins than E. coli. The equivalent of LPS in LAB, the LipoTeichoic Acid (LTA), has been shown to be only toxic at high concentrations (Lebeer et al. 2012). Finally, LAB are very good live vehicles to in situ produce and deliver therapeutic molecules to the GIT. 

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