Lactococcus lactis-based vaccines: Current status and future perspectives

Lactococcus lactis offers significant potential as a platform for the delivery of vaccines especially via mucosal routes of administration. The organism has an established history of safe use in the food industry and is highly amenable to genetic manipulation, with many systems available for efficient production of secreted and surface-expressed proteins. Here we describe the benefits of using this organism as a vaccine delivery platform and outline how L. lactis based antigen delivery may be improved. Finally we discuss the safe use of L. lactis vectors and outline the potential for use of biological containment systems and killed lactococcal preparations.