Synergistic effects of basic fibroblast growth factor and insulin on Chinese hamster ovary cells under serum-free conditions

High-level transient production of a protease-resistant mutant form of human basic fibroblast growth factor in Nicotiana benthamiana leaves

The human basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) is a protein that plays a pivotal role in cellular processes like cell proliferation and development. As a result, it has become an important component in cell culture systems, with applications in biomedical engineering, cosmetics, and research. Alternative production techniques, such as transient production in plants, are becoming a feasible option as the demand continues to grow. High-level bFGF production was achieved in this study employing an optimized Agrobacterium-mediated transient expression system, which yielded about a 3-fold increase in production over a conventional system. This yield was further doubled at about 185 µg g^-1 FW using a mutant protease-resistant version that degraded/aggregated at a three-fold slower rate in leaf crude extracts. To achieve a pure product, a two-step purification technique was applied. The capacity of the pure protease-resistant bFGF (PRbFGF) to stimulate cell proliferation was tested and was found to be comparable to that of E. coli-produced bFGF in HepG2 and CHO-K1 cells. Overall, this study demonstrates a high-level transient production system of functional PRbFGF in N. benthamiana leaves as well as an efficient tag-less purification technique of leaf crude extracts.

Life at the periphery: what makes CHO cells survival talents

Abstract

The production of biopharmaceuticals relies on robust cell systems that can produce recombinant proteins at high levels and grow and survive in the stressful bioprocess environment. Chinese hamster ovary cells (CHO) as the main production hosts offer a variety of advantages including robust growth and survival in a bioprocess environment. Cell surface proteins are of special interest for the understanding of how CHO cells react to their environment while maintaining growth and survival phenotypes, since they enable cellular reactions to external stimuli and potentially initiate signaling pathways. To provide deeper insight into functions of this special cell surface sub-proteome, pathway enrichment analysis of the determined CHO surfaceome was conducted. Enrichment of growth/ survival-pathways such as the phosphoinositide-3-kinase (PI3K)–protein kinase B (AKT), mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK), Janus kinase/signal transducers and activators of transcription (JAK-STAT), and RAP1 pathways were observed, offering novel insights into how cell surface receptors and ligand-mediated signaling enable the cells to grow and survive in a bioprocess environment. When supplementing surfaceome data with RNA expression data, several growth/survival receptors were shown to be co-expressed with their respective ligands and thus suggesting self-induction mechanisms, while other receptors or ligands were not detectable. As data about the presence of surface receptors and their associated expressed ligands may serve as base for future studies, further pathway characterization will enable the implementation of optimization strategies to further enhance cellular growth and survival behavior.

Key points

• PI3K/AKT, MAPK, JAK-STAT, and RAP1 pathway receptors are enriched on the CHO cell surface and downstream pathways present on mRNA level.

• Detected pathways indicate strong CHO survival and growth phenotypes.

• Potential self-induction of surface receptors and respective ligands.

Graphical abstract

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00253-022-12123-6.

Metabolic analysis of antibody producing Chinese hamster ovary cell culture under different stresses conditions

Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells are commonly used as the host cell lines concerning their ability to produce therapeutic proteins with complex post-translational modifications. In this study, we have investigated the time course extra- and intracellular metabolome data of the CHO-K1 cell line, under a control and stress conditions. The addition of NaCl and trehalose greatly suppressed cell growth, where the maximum viable cell density of NaCl and trehalose cultures were 2.2-fold and 2.8-fold less than that of a control culture. Contrariwise, the antibody production of both the NaCl and trehalose cultures was sustained for a longer time to surpass that of the control culture. The NaCl and trehalose cultures showed relatively similar dynamics of cell growth, antibody production, and substrate/product concentrations, while they indicated different dynamics from the control culture. The principal component analysis of extra- and intracellular metabolome dynamics indicated that their dynamic behaviors were consistent with biological functions. The qualitative pattern matching classification and hierarchical clustering analyses for the intracellular metabolome identified the metabolite clusters whose dynamic behaviors depend on NaCl and trehalose. The volcano plot revealed several reporter metabolites whose dynamics greatly change between in the NaCl and trehalose cultures. The elastic net identified some critical, intracellular metabolites that are distinct between the NaCl and trehalose. While a relatively small number of intracellular metabolites related to the cell growth, glucose, glutamine, lactate and ammonium ion concentrations, the mechanism of antibody production was suggested to be very complicated or not to be explained by elastic net regression analysis.

Identification of autocrine growth factors secreted by CHO cells for applications in single-cell cloning media

Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell lines are widely used for the expression of therapeutic recombinant proteins, including monoclonal antibodies and other biologics. For manufacturing, cells derived from a single-cell clone are typically used to ensure product consistency. Presently, fetal bovine serum (FBS) is commonly used to support low cell density cultures to obtain clonal cell populations because cells grow slowly, or even do not survive at low cell densities in protein-free media. However, regulatory authorities have discouraged the use of FBS to reduce the risk of contamination by adventitious agents from animal-derived components. In this study, we demonstrated how a complementary mass spectrometry-based shotgun proteomics strategy enabled the identification of autocrine growth factors in CHO cell-conditioned media, which has led to the development of a fully defined single-cell cloning media that is serum and animal component-free. Out of 290 secreted proteins that were identified, eight secreted growth factors were reported for the first time from CHO cell cultures. By supplementing a combination of these growth factors to protein-free basal media, single cell growth of CHO cells was improved with cloning efficiencies of up to 30%, a 2-fold improvement compared to unsupplemented basal media. Complementary effects of these autocrine growth factors with other paracrine growth factors were also demonstrated when the mixture improved cloning efficiency to 42%, similar to that for the conditioned medium.