Mario Pereira, field application scientist for bioproduction at Horizon Discovery, a PerkinElmer company, comments on the advantages of using CHO cells for biomanufacturing and explains how gene editing technologies are increasing their utility.
Since the approval in 1986 of the first mammalian-expressed recombinant therapeutic—human tissue plasminogen activator produced in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells—CHO cell lines have dominated therapeutic protein production. The capacity of CHO cells to grow in suspension culture at very high cell densities, combined with their unparalleled adaptability to different growth conditions, has led them to become a mammalian “workhorse” for producing proteins at scale. However, as biologic drugs increase in complexity, the cellular systems used in their production must evolve to address various biomanufacturing needs.
Intricacies of the biomanufacturing workflow
Manufacturing a biologic drug in a mammalian system at commercial scale is inherently time-consuming and complex. It begins with cell line development, whereby a DNA vector encoding the therapeutic protein is transfected into the chosen host cell line. Following selection of expressing cells and the screening of hundreds of individual clones, a small number of candidates is identified for further evaluation and characterisation.