ORT-VAC: live bacterial vectors for vaccine delivery

Lead Research Organisation: Royal Holloway University of London
Department Name: Biological Sciences

Abstract

We aim to revolutionise vaccination by developing an innovative oral vaccine delivery technology. Traditional vaccines require extensive and costly production, purification, formulation and storage, with needles used for administration. We will engineer live enteric ORT-VAC bacteria to carry plasmids expressing antigens. These uniquely enable stable, high-copy number plasmid maintenance without antibiotic resistance or other selectable marker genes, making them particularly suited for delivering DNA vaccines against influenza and HIV, which will also be developed by the consortium. Encapsulation technology will be optimised to enable the bacteria to be stored at ambient temperature, ingested and released into the small intestine, where they will stimulate a protective immune response. ORT-VAC therefore represents a cost-effective platform technology with built-in stability, adjuvanticity and efficacy.

Publications

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Huang JM (2010) Oral delivery of a DNA vaccine against tuberculosis using operator-repressor titration in a Salmonella enterica vector. in Vaccine

 
Description We evaluated a novel method for delivering antigens from Mycobacterium tuberculosis (the causative agent of TB) using a bacterium (Salmonella typhi) by the oral route. Salmonella is used as an oral vaccine to typhoid fever where it can be used by the oral route as a pill. We engineered this bacterium to express M. tuberculosis antigens and then demonstrated that when administered by the oral route immune responses to the antigen could be achieved. In principle this offer the potential of using Salmonella as an oral vaccine system for TB.
Exploitation Route Further work could be conducted to use the delivery system using new antigens that could be employed for TB vaccination. The oral route of delivery is particularly attractive. The Salmonella system for delivering antigens is currently being exploited by the UK company Prokarium (www.prokarium.com) and our work supports their platform.
Sectors Pharmaceuticals and Medical Biotechnology