Genetic and immunological studies on the expression in Escherichia coli of the class 1 outer membrane protein from Neisseria meningitidis

Meningoccal meningitis remains a severe life-threatening infection. Present vaccines to combat the disease consist of purified capsular polysac-charides and provide only limited protection against serogroups A & C, and give no protection against group B mcningococci. The class 1 outer membrane protein, may offer an alternative as an immunogen. Unfortunately, other components in the current experimental subcapsular vaccines, and the difficulty of obtaining class 1 protein in a native form, has hampered further investigation of its potential use in vaccines. This project uses recombinant techniques to express the class 1 protein in an E.coli host as the first step in production of an improved immunogen.The entire class 1 gene porA had been cloned and sequenced and transferred to a plasmid vector pMTL20 (Barlow et a/., (1987