Baculovirus-Infected Cells Fermentation Services

Based on our established strain development platform, BOC Sciences provides one-stop fermentation services using various microorganisms. Our cell expression systems continue to evolve in advanced ways, and our business composition includes the baculovirus-infected cell system, which can be utilized in providing customized protein expression services. We generate proteins with complex post-translational modifications (e.g., protein glycosylation) using engineered insect cell lines in conjunction with baculovirus expression vectors.

BOC Sciences has expertise in protein expression. We develop and optimize cell culture as well as downstream processes using baculovirus-infected cells as hosts for industrial protein production. As a leading CDMO, we are able to provide fermentation services from laboratory concept to industrial scale in order to complement quality services for our clients at all project development stages.

Introduction

Bacteria, yeast, insect, plant, or mammalian cells can all serve as hosts for protein expression. When selecting an expression system, the nature and complexity of protein, related post-translational modifications, scaling, and costs are criteria needed to be considered. Currently, the use of insect cells in combination with the baculovirus expression vector (BEV) system for heterologous protein expression has attracted increasing interest from scientists and researchers. Using the BEV system supports large quantity protein production with complex post-translational modifications, which can also scale up processing with relative ease.

Baculovirus belongs to the Baculoviridae family and is an enveloped double-stranded DNA virus. This widely studied insect virus shows good promise for biotechnological applications. The BEV system has become an established manufacturing platform for producing recombinant proteins and gene therapy vectors. The BEV system enables fast, large-scale, flexible, and highly safe protein production. In addition, the recombinant baculovirus is capable of infecting mammalian cells and has been widely used for in vivo gene delivery.

Advantages of BEV System

• Easy scale-up: The BEV system simplifies cell growth and easily adapts to high-density suspension cultures. Moreover, the protein expression level of baculovirus-infected insects can quantitatively qualify the large-scale production of biologically active recombinant proteins.
• Modified protein: The BEV system can process eukaryotic proteins because insect cells have most of the post-translational modification pathways present in the mammalian system. Compared to microorganisms such as yeast, baculovirus-insect cells support the production of recombinant proteins that are functionally similar to native mammalian proteins.
• Safety: Baculoviruses are essentially non-pathogenic to mammals and plants, which only infect a limited range of hosts and are usually restricted to a small number of closely related insect species.

Applications of Baculovirus-Infected Cells

• Protein production: Different recombinant proteins, such as membrane-bound proteins, cell membrane enzymes, have been successfully produced using baculovirus-infected cells to support research, agricultural, medical, and veterinary applications.
• Virus-like particles (VLPs) production: The baculovirus-insect cell system has been widely used for the production of VLPs to study the viral assembly process in the absence of infectious viruses and to produce antigens for immunization, as well as proteins for diagnostic tests and gene transfer.

Project Workflow

• Customer advisory
• Project discussion
• Baculovirus-infected cells served as host
• Strain improvement and fermentation development
• Novel strain evaluation
• Project delivery

References

1. Felberbaum, R. S., The baculovirus expression vector system: A commercial manufacturing platform for viral vaccines and gene therapy vectors, Biotechnol J., 2015, 10(5): 702-714.
2. Kost, T. A., Condreay, J. P., Jarvis, D. L., Baculovirus as versatile vectors for protein expression in insect and mammalian cells, Nat. Biotechnol., 2005, 23, 567-575.
3. Nguyen, Q., Nielsen, L. K., and Reid, S., Genome scale transcriptomics of baculovirus-insect interactions, Viruses, 2013, 5(11), 2721-2747.