DISPLAY OF HETEROLOGOUS PROTEINS ON THE SURFACE OF MICROORGANISMS - FROM THE SCREENING OF COMBINATORIAL LIBRARIES TO LIVE RECOMBINANT VACCINES

In recent years there has been considerable progress towards the devel opment of expression systems for the display of heterologous polypepti des and, to a lesser extent, oligosaccharides on the surface of bacter ia or yeast. The availability of protein display vectors has in turn p rovided the impetus for a range of exciting technologies. Polypeptide libraries can be displayed in bacteria and screened by cell sorting te chniques, thus simplifying the isolation of proteins with high affinit y for ligands. Expression of antigens on the surface of nonvirulent mi croorganisms is an attractive approach to the development of high-effi cacy recombinant live vaccines. Finally, cells displaying protein rece ptors or antibodies are of use for analytical applications and biosepa rations.