Recombinant Expression of Complex Proteins in Human Cell Lines.

Coagulation factors, as factor VII, VIII, and IX, are complex proteins which are very difficult to express. Blood coagulation factor IX is a vitamin K-dependent protein, and it has become a valuable biopharmaceutical in the treatment of hemophilia B. Here, we describe the techniques used to generate human cell lines producing human recombinant factor IX, as an example of complex protein, as well as in vitro characterization of this coagulation factor.To produce the FIX human adherent 293T SK-Hep-1 cells were used and stably modified by a lentiviral vector carrying the hFIX and the eGFP genes. The eGFP was employed as a reporter protein.

Establishment of a simple and efficient platform for car-t cell generation and expansion: from lentiviral production to in vivo studies.

INTRODUCTION: Adoptive transfer of T cells expressing a CD19-specific chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) has shown impressive response rates for the treatment of CD19 + B-cell malignancies in numerous clinical trials. The CAR molecule, which recognizes cell-surface tumor-associated antigen independently of human leukocyte antigen (HLA), is composed by one or more signaling molecules to activate genetically modified T cells for killing, proliferation, and cytokine production. OBJECTIVES: In order to make this treatment available for a larger number of patients, we developed a simple and efficient platform to generate and expand CAR-T cells. METHODS: Our approach is based on a lentiviral vector composed by a second-generation CAR that signals through a 41BB and CD3-ζ endodomain. CONCLUSIONS: In this work, we show a high-level production of the lentiviral vector, which was successfully used to generate CAR-T cells. The CAR-T cells produced were highly cytotoxic and specific against CD19+ cells in vitro and in vivo, being able to fully control disease progression in a xenograft B-cell lymphoma mouse model. Our work demonstrates the feasibility of producing CAR-T cells in an academic context and can serve as a paradigm for similar institutions. Nevertheless, the results presented may contribute favoring the translation of the research to the clinical practice.

Human Cells as Platform to Produce Gamma-Carboxylated Proteins.

The gamma-carboxylated proteins belong to a family of proteins that depend on vitamin K for normal biosynthesis. The major representative gamma-carboxylated proteins are the coagulation system proteins, for example, factor VII, factor IX, factor X, prothrombin, and proteins C, S, and Z. These molecules have harbored posttranslational modifications, such as glycosylation and gamma-carboxylation, and for this reason they need to be produced in mammalian cell lines. Human cells lines have emerged as the most promising alternative to the production of gamma-carboxylated proteins. In this chapter, the methods to generate human cells as a platform to produce gamma-carboxylated proteins, for example the coagulation factors VII and IX, are presented. From the cell line modification up to the vitamin K adaptation of the produced cells is described in the protocols presented in this chapter.

Human cell lines: A promising alternative for recombinant FIX production.

Factor IX (FIX) is a vitamin K-dependent protein, and it has become a valuable pharmaceutical in the Hemophilia B treatment. We evaluated the potential of recombinant human FIX (rhFIX) expression in 293T and SK-Hep-1 human cell lines. SK-Hep-1-FIX cells produced higher levels of biologically active protein. The growth profile of 293T-FIX cells was not influenced by lentiviral integration number into the cellular genome. SK-Hep-1-FIX cells showed a significantly lower growth rate than SK-Hep-1 cells. γ-carboxylation process is significant to FIX biological activity, thus we performed a expression analysis of genes involved in this process. The 293T gene expression suggests that this cell line could efficiently carboxylate FIX, however only 28% of the total secreted protein is active. SK-Hep-1 cells did not express high amounts of VKORC1 and carboxylase, but this cell line secreted large amounts of active protein. Enrichment of culture medium with Ca(+2) and Mg(+2) ions did not affect positively rhFIX expression in SK-Hep-1 cells. In 293T cells, the addition of 0.5 mM Ca(+2) and 1 mM Mg(+2) resulted in higher rhFIX concentration. SK-Hep-1 cell line proved to be very effective in rhFIX production, and it can be used as a novel biotechnological platform for the production of recombinant proteins.

Approaches for recombinant human factor IX production in serum-free suspension cultures.

OBJECTIVE: To establish a serum-free suspension process for production of recombinant human factor IX (rhFIX) based on the human cell line HEK 293T by evaluating two approaches: (1) serum-free suspension adaptation of previously genetic modified cells (293T-FIX); and (2) genetic modification of cells already adapted to such conditions (293T/SF-FIX). RESULTS: After 10 months, 293T-FIX cells had become adapted to FreeStyle 293 serum-free medium (SFM) in Erlenmeyer flasks. After 48 and 72 h of culture, 2.1 µg rhFIX/ml and 3.3 µg rhFIX/ml were produced, respectively. However, no biological activity was detected. In the second approach, wild-type 293T cells were adapted to the same SFM (adaptation process took only 2 months) and then genetically modified for rhFIX production. After 48 h of culture, rhFIX reached 1.5 µg/ml with a biological activity of 0.2 IU/ml, while after 72 h, the production was 2.4 µg/ml with a biological activity of 0.3 IU/ml. CONCLUSION: The findings demonstrate that the best approach to establish an rhFIX production process in suspension SFM involves the genetic modification of cells already adapted to the final conditions. This approach is time saving and may better ensure the quality of the produced protein.