With the introduction of antibiotics in animal feed becoming less popular, the agricultural industry has begun a shift towards the use of probiotics in animal feed. Since there is no current method to evaluate the risks of using genetically modified probiotics in animal feed. The goal of this project was to create a genetically modified model organism for risk assessment. The genetic marker for that was chosen was GFP that was to be expressed on the surface of the cell. The fluorescent properties allow for visualisation of the genetically modified bacteria and the surface expression would allow for the easy capture and recovery of the bacteria for culturing and cell counts. Genome wide screens were performed using the CW PRED algorithm to locate proteins with LPXTG motif for cell wall anchoring. 16 hypothetical proteins were detected and 6 were selected as candidates for possible surface display of GFP. Of these candidates, the novel L. casei protein LSEI_2320 was found to be expressed at the mRNA during early growth by RT PCR and at then protein level during stationary phase with western blot. This LPXTG protein was found at the surface of L. casei ATCC334 during stationary phase and late stationary phase with immunofluorescence microscopy. A genetically modified L. casei ATCC334 was constructed using the surface protein LSEI_2320 locus as a region for recombination with the pRV300 suicide plasmid. Genetic modification of the locus by the insertion of a GFP reporter region just before the predicted signal peptide site resulted in the abrogation of the expression of LSEI_2320 from the cell surface at the late stationary phase. It appears that this particular gene is not necessary to cell survival even though it is abundantly expressed on the cell surface and can be used as a location for genetic modification in L. casei ATCC334.

With the introduction of antibiotics in animal feed becoming less popular, the agricultural industry has begun a shift towards the use of probiotics in animal feed. Since there is no current method to evaluate the risks of using genetically modified probiotics in animal feed. The goal of this project was to create a genetically modified model organism for risk assessment. The genetic marker for that was chosen was GFP that was to be expressed on the surface of the cell. The fluorescent properties allow for visualisation of the genetically modified bacteria and the surface expression would allow for the easy capture and recovery of the bacteria for culturing and cell counts. Genome wide screens were performed using the CW PRED algorithm to locate proteins with LPXTG motif for cell wall anchoring. 16 hypothetical proteins were detected and 6 were selected as candidates for possible surface display of GFP. Of these candidates, the novel L. casei protein LSEI_2320 was found to be expressed at the mRNA during early growth by RT PCR and at then protein level during stationary phase with western blot. This LPXTG protein was found at the surface of L. casei ATCC334 during stationary phase and late stationary phase with immunofluorescence microscopy. A genetically modified L. casei ATCC334 was constructed using the surface protein LSEI_2320 locus as a region for recombination with the pRV300 suicide plasmid. Genetic modification of the locus by the insertion of a GFP reporter region just before the predicted signal peptide site resulted in the abrogation of the expression of LSEI_2320 from the cell surface at the late stationary phase. It appears that this particular gene is not necessary to cell survival even though it is abundantly expressed on the cell surface and can be used as a location for genetic modification in L. casei ATCC334.