[Biological safety investigations of the production of human insulin by genetically engineered E. coli K-12 cells. 1. Survival capacity of the production strain in the digestive tract of Göttinger miniature swine].

The residence time of genetically engineered Escherichia coli K-12 cells in the digestive tract was tested by feeding Göttinger minipigs 10(10)-10(11) cells of strain W3110iqM15 (pSW3). This strain is a production strain for human insulin and carries the plasmid pSW3 which contains the genes for human insulin. The test strain could be selected as white colonies grown on McConkey ampicillin plates and could be identified by complementation analysis due to its lacZ M15 deletion. The strain could be isolated from the faeces of the animals up to 72 h after feeding, thereafter no cells of the phenotype of the test strain grew on McConkey ampicillin plates. So the production strain for human insulin W3110iqM15 (pSW3) was not able to colonize the digestive tract of the Göttinger minipig. Feeding the genetically engineered E. coli K-12 cells had no influence on the welfare of the animals.