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BackgroundTuberculosis is one of the most common and deadliest infectious diseases worldwide affecting almost a third of the world’s population. Although this disease is being prevented and controlled by the Bacille Calmette Guérin (BCG) vaccine, the protective efficacy is highly variable and substandard (0–80%) in adults. Therefore, novel and effective tuberculosis vaccine that can overcome the limitations from BCG vaccine need to be developed.ResultsA novel approach of utilizing an in-trans protein surface display system of Lactobacillus plantarum carrying and displaying combination of Mycobacterium tuberculosis subunit epitope antigens (Ag85B, CFP-10, ESAT-6, Rv0475 and Rv2031c) fused with LysM anchor motif designated as ACERL was constructed, cloned and expressed in Esherichia coli Rossetta expression host. Subsequently the binding capability of ACERL to the cell wall of L. plantarum was examined via the immunofluorescence microscopy and whole cell ELISA where successful attachment and consistent stability of cell wall binding up to 4 days was determined. The immunization of the developed vaccine of L. plantarum surface displaying ACERL (Lp ACERL) via the oral route was studied in mice for its immunogenicity effects. Lp ACERL immunization was able to invoke significant immune responses that favor the Th1 type cytokine response of IFN-γ, IL-12 and IL-2 as indicated by the outcome from the cytokine profiling of spleen, lung, gastrointestinal tract (GIT), and the re-stimulation of the splenocytes from the immunized mice. Co-administration of an adjuvant consisting of Lactococcus lactis secreting mouse IL-12 (LcIL-12) with Lp ACERL was also investigated. It was shown that the addition of LcIL-12 was able to further generate significant Th1 type cytokines immune responses, similar or better than that of Lp ACERL alone which can be observed from the cytokine profiling of the immunized mice’s spleen, lung and GIT.ConclusionsThis study represents a proof of concept in the development of L. plantarum as a carrier for a non-genetically modified organism (GMO) tuberculosis vaccine, which may be the strategy in the future for tuberculosis vaccine development.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12896-018-0461-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Background The current limitations of conventional BCG vaccines highlights the importance in developing novel and effective vaccines against tuberculosis (TB). The utilization of probiotics such as Lactobacillus plantarum for the delivery of TB antigens through in-trans surface display provides an effective and safe vaccine approach against TB. Such non-recombinant probiotic surface display strategy involves the fusion of candidate proteins with cell wall binding domain such as LysM, which enables the fusion protein to anchor the L. plantarum cell wall externally, without the need for vector genetic modification. This approach requires sufficient production of these recombinant fusion proteins in cell factory such as Escherichia coli which has been shown to be effective in heterologous protein production for decades. However, overexpression in E. coli expression system resulted in limited amount of soluble heterologous TB-LysM fusion protein, since most of it are accumulated as insoluble aggregates in inclusion bodies (IBs). Conventional methods of denaturation and renaturation for solubilizing IBs are costly, time-consuming and tedious. Thus, in this study, an alternative method for TB antigen-LysM protein solubilization from IBs based on the use of non-denaturating reagent N-lauroylsarcosine (NLS) was investigated. Results Expression of TB antigen-LysM fusion genes was conducted in Escherichia coli, but this resulted in IBs deposition in contrast to the expression of TB antigens only. This suggested that LysM fusion significantly altered solubility of the TB antigens produced in E. coli . The non-denaturing NLS technique was used and optimized to successfully solubilize and purify ~ 55% of the recombinant cell wall-anchoring TB antigen from the IBs. Functionality of the recovered protein was analyzed via immunofluorescence microscopy and whole cell ELISA which showed successful and stable cell wall binding to L. plantarum (up to 5 days). Conclusion The presented NLS purification strategy enables an efficient and rapid method for obtaining higher yields of soluble cell wall-anchoring Mycobacterium tuberculosis antigens-LysM fusion proteins from IBs in E. coli . Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12896-019-0522-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.