Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology, Branch Bioanalytics and Bioprocesses IZI-BBThe production of recombinant proteins is one of the core issues of today's biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry. Each protein requires individually adapted production processes in order to ensure not only the highest quality but also a maximum yield. Our institute has many years of expertise in the production of recombinant proteins and the associated process optimization. In addition to conventional, cell-based production, our specialization lies primarily in cell-free protein synthesis. This method not only enables a faster production time and makes the synthesis process economical, but also makes the process more flexible and easier to control. In addition, this technology enables the production of proteins that are otherwise difficult to produce, such as membrane proteins or proteins with cytotoxic effects.
Protein synthesis
Possibilities for cell-based production processes at Fraunhofer IZI-BB. Various possibilities for the cultivation of eukaryotic cells from shaking flasks to benchtops (1 l and 5 l) (stage set - pilot scale 30 l) fermentation processes. The choice of the cultivation method is adapted to the respective application and development.
Development and evaluation of protein production processes adapted to the individual conditions of a desired target protein. In addition to conventional, cell-based protein production systems (left part of the figure), Fraunhofer IZI-BB has specialized cell-free protein synthesis platforms (right part of the figure), which enable the rapid and parallelized synthesis of proteins. The choice of method depends on the future application and the characteristics of the proteins.
Range of services:
»in vivo« versus »in vitro« (cell-based versus cell-free): comparisons of gene sequences, promoter sequences, signal peptides and purity markers for the improvement and acceleration of industrial production pipelines
Cell-based synthesis
- Use of eukaryotic cell lines (CHO, human cell lines, Sf21) for recombinant protein production
- Evaluation of transfection methods used to obtain high expression rates of target proteins
- Development of stable cell lines for desired processes using various clone selection and gene integration methods (e.g. CRISPR Cas)
- Upscaling of fermentation processes for recombinant protein production up to pilot scale
Cell-free synthesis
- Cell-free synthesis of membrane proteins and toxic proteins
- Nanodisks for embedding membrane proteins
- Fast and functional analysis of ion channels, transporter proteins and pore-forming, toxic proteins directly after synthesis by electrophysiological methods in planar double lipid layers
- Tailor-made cell-free systems for customer-specific applications
- Prokaryotic cell-free systems based on E.coli lysates
- Eukaryotic cell-free systems based on CHO, Sf21 and K562 cell lysates
- Upscaling of cell-free systems for the production and purification of medically relevant proteins
- Development of new HTS methods and HTS-compatible systems for screening applications
- Customization of cell lines for customized cell-free systems
Applications
