Methods for spore display

Abstract

The present invention provides engineered bacterial spores that comprise a cargo protein conjugated to a spore coat protein. Also provided are bacteria and methods for producing the spores and methods of using the spores to deliver a cargo protein to a subject. Spores are a highly stable phenotype of spore-forming microbes like Bacillus subtilis. Spores have robust tolerance to thermal, pH, proteinase, and solvent challenges and can be used as protein carriers for many potential applications, including vaccines, probiotic delivery, bioremediation, enzyme immobilization, bioprocessing, and more. Spore display is a technique for loading proteins of interest within a spore or onto the surface of a spore. This is accomplished by conjugating a protein of interest to a spore coat protein to anchor it to the spore.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.