117 Recombinant protein expression for therapeutic applications Dana C Andersen* and Lynne Krummen† In recent years, the number of recombinant proteins used for therapeutic applications has increased dramatically. Many of these applications involve complex glycoproteins and antibodies with relatively high production needs. These demands have driven the development of a variety of improvements in protein expression technology, particularly involving mammalian and microbial culture systems. Addresses Cell Culture & Fermentation Research & Development, Genentech, Inc., 1 DNA Way, South San Francisco, CA 94080, USA *e-mail: andersen@gene.com † e-mail: krummen.lynne@gene.com Current Opinion in Biotechnology 2002, 13 :117–123 0958-1669/02/$ —see front matter © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Abbreviations CHO Chinese hamster ovary BHK baby hamster kidney Introduction As the biotechnology industry has rapidly expanded in recent years, the expression of a spectrum of recombinant proteins in different systems for a wide variety of purposes has been a major feature and challenge. In some applications, a large array of proteins are needed in relatively small quantities for screening applications, whereas in other cases, quantities approaching the metric ton scale are needed for specific therapeutic applications. The majority of therapeutic proteins have been produced in either mammalian cell-culture systems, with Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells representing the most common system, or in Escherichia coli [1,2•]. A variety of alternative expression systems are also being developed and evaluated. It is not at all clear which of these systems will ultimately be the most useful for the variety of niches and applications of therapeutic protein production. Several excellent reviews have provided comprehensive coverage of various aspects of therapeutic protein production, including specific issues related to large-scale cell culture production [1] and considerations for the production of specific classes of molecules such as recombinant antibody-related products [3]. This review will focus on selected results across a range of expression systems (although focusing primarily on mammalian and E. coli cell-culture systems) that illustrate important ways in which expression technology is evolving to meet the spectrum of research, development and commercial needs. Rather than provide a comprehensive review of the subject, this review will highlight several specific, recent results across the field. Mammalian expression systems Over the past seven to eight years there has been considerable progress in fine-tuning mammalian expression systems for high-level recombinant gene expression. CHO and NS0 murine myeloma cell expression systems have now established themselves as the predominant systems of choice for mammalian expression. Refinements of vector construction, choice of selectable markers and advances in gene-targeting and high-throughput screening strategies have made the establishment of recombinant cell lines with high specific productivities (20–60 pg/cell/day for antibody cell lines) relatively common and have reduced the time required for cell line development. Recent advancements in expression technologies using traditional viral-promoter-based expression vectors include the development and refinement of dicistronic expression strategies using either internal ribosome entry site (IRES) sequences [4–7] or alternative splicing [8,9]. These strategies are designed to link expression of the gene of interest to the selectable marker. In addition, early reports on the development of host cell lines that express trans-activating factors or include cis-acting elements on expression constructs [10••] promise further advances in the augmentation of promoter activity in the near future. A variety of novel promoter systems are also being developed and evaluated both for recombinant drug product expression and for directed metabolic engineering approaches (see [11]). For example, both tetracycline- and streptogramin-based gene regulation systems have recently been demonstrated to be highly useful for regulatable expression in CHO and other mammalian cell cultures [12••,13]. These systems promise to be useful for multicomponent control strategies and for the expression of products which themselves promote cytostasis or cytotoxicity. For the alternative application of expressing high numbers of proteins for screening applications, an alphavirus-based system has been reported [14]. Transient systems, in which the isolation of stable transfectants is bypassed so that protein expression is obtained rapidly but only for a limited period of time, have also been shown capable of producing reasonable protein levels (10–20 mg/L) in reduced times [15]. These systems are providing an increasing array of tools to enable the manipulation of large panels of genes efficiently. One of the most notable advances in recent years has been the application of genetic engineering approaches to rationally modify specific features of mammalian host cells to improve their utility in recombinant protein expression applications. One such example is in the area of glycosylation control. Work over the past decade has demonstrated how various reactions in the glycosylation pathway can be influenced by cell-culture factors, host-cell selection and 118 Biochemical engineering protein-specific features (reviewed in [16,17,18•]), leading to the production of molecules with variable or suboptimal clearance or bioactivity properties. Recent studies have shown that specific manipulation of oligosaccharide structures on a recombinant protein by overexpression of appropriate glycosyltransferases can enhance glycan quality. Improvements are made either by increasing the homogeneity of native structures or by introducing nonhost-cell residues to specialize glycan quality and function. For example, the overexpression of a galactosyltransferase and a sialyltransferase in CHO cells led to corresponding increases in the galactose and sialic acid content of expressed recombinant therapeutic proteins [19••]. Other groups have successfully overexpressed N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase III to increase the fraction of bisecting N-acetylglucosamine residues on antibodies produced in CHO cells [20,21]. Sialic acid has also been introduced in an α2,6-linkage to glycoproteins synthesized by CHO and baby hamster kidney (BHK) cells that lack the specific sialyltransferase responsible for this transfer [18•,22,23]. Another focus of genetic manipulation has been to improve the efficiency of central carbon metabolism and to reduce lactate accumulation. Earlier work showed that overexpression of a pyruvate carboxylase gene in BHK cells reduced lactate accumulation and improved cell yields on glucose, although it is not clear if this approach would be helpful in CHO cultures [24]. In an alternative approach, partial disruption of the gene encoding lactate dehydrogenase A (LDH-A) led to reduced lactate and improved cell-culture performance in hybridoma cultures [25]. Perhaps the most interesting of the targets for metabolic control have been highlighted by recent studies to control cell growth and to limit apoptotic cell death. Several previous studies have shown that recombinant protein production may be linked to the growth state of the culture. These studies have shown both growth-associated and inverse growth-associated production in different systems. Recent attempts to exploit this phenomenon have used inducible expression of the product gene in concert with a regulatory protein (such as p27) that induces cell-cycle arrest at the G1/S phase border. These studies support the hypothesis that growth arrest, at least in this case, is associated with as much as a 15-fold increase in specific productivity [26,27••]. Increased productivity has also been observed in response to temperature shift and in BHK cultures in which cell proliferation was controlled by expression of the tumor suppressor IRF-1 (interferon regulatory factor 1) [27••,28,29]. In both instances, however, direct effects of temperature and IRF-1 on transcriptional and/or translational control may play a role. Whether or not growth control can be balanced with enhancements in cell-specific productivity in such a way as to significantly enhance volumetric productivity remains to be seen. Although the potential benefits of these approaches are encouraging, questions remain regarding the general application of the specific promoter systems, cell-line-specific effects and the method of growth control in controlling growth-related productivity effects (see [30–32]). Similarly, work demonstrating the ability of chemical inhibitors of apoptosis to extend culture viability has laid the foundation for a growing area of work directed towards genetic engineering of cell death pathways. Overexpression of Bcl-2 and BclxL has been shown to inhibit apoptotic death in several different mammalian culture systems (see [33,34]). A recent report also showed increased volumetric antibody expression in butyrate-treated CHO cultures overexpressing Bcl-2 [35]. Although promising, the effects observed in these studies have been relatively modest and variable depending on the cell line and the apoptotic stimuli. This is perhaps not surprising given the complexity and redundancy of the regulatory pathways involved in apoptosis, and multifaceted approaches may be required to achieve significant benefits. Researchers are now expanding their approaches to include inhibitors of caspase activation and mitochondrial cytochrome c release. A recent genetic engineering study using overexpression of Bcl-2 deletion mutants in CHO and BHK cells also suggested that the inherent susceptibility of wild-type Bcl-2 to intracellular degradation may explain some of the limited effects on productivity that have been reported for Bcl-2-based strategies [34,36••]. In addition to genetic approaches, several recent studies show that environmental control strategies continue to be useful for manipulating glycosylation as well as carbon metabolism, cell growth and cell death. For instance, medium supplementation with the nucleotide sugar precursors glucosamine and N-acetylmannosamine enabled some level of glycosylation control of a recombinant glycoprotein produced in NS0 and CHO cultures [37,38]. Additionally, advancements in fed-batch and batch media compositions have dramatically improved viable cell density and the duration of serum-free cell culture through a general retardation of onset of apoptosis (e.g. [39]). Likewise, reduced temperatures have been shown to prolong cell viability and, in some cases, enhance cell-specific productivity either through growth arrest phenomenon or through the modulation of cold-sensitive gene expression [27••]. Other studies have identified media additives directed specifically towards the inhibition of apoptosis [40,41]. In a related study, rapomycin was fed to hybridoma cultures in an effort to reduce cell death via cell-cycle modulation, yet was found to have a broadly beneficial effect on growth and productivity in this system [42]. Microbial expression systems The primary microbial host for producing recombinant therapeutic proteins has been E. coli, and recent reviews have provided excellent summaries of key elements of this topic [2,43]. In many cases, the production of soluble, active protein is desired (as opposed to inclusion-body formation), and a Recombinant protein expression for therapeutic applications Andersen and Krummen variety of cases where proteins with chaperone-like activity have enhanced folding have been recently reported. DegP represents one interesting case as it has been demonstrated to have chaperone-like activity in at least two cases at reduced temperature, along with its known protease activity at higher temperatures [44,45]. Recent work has shown that mutants with modulated activities of the disulfide oxidoreductases DsbA and DsbC can be used to enhance disulfide isomerization and protein folding in the periplasm [46]. These results complement earlier work showing the dramatic improvements in yields that can be achieved in some cases by overexpressing these proteins [47]. Overexpression of the periplasmic peptidylprolyl isomerase FkpA has been shown to increase yields of a single-chain Fv fragment (scFv), although the effect is apparently independent of the peptidylprolyl isomerase activity [48]. In an alternative approach, Fab antibody fragments were expressed in the cytoplasm of trxB mutants in which a variety of chaperones were co-expressed and seen to have effects on folding [49••]. ClpG and HtbG have also been shown to facilitate protein folding in E. coli [50], a result that highlights the beneficial role that stress proteins can have in protein folding. Collectively, these results demonstrate the utility of co-expressing specific factors to modulate the folding environment. Although the various promoter systems commonly used for E. coli have been well described [43], several recent reports have demonstrated new options. In one particularly notable result, secondary structure was engineered into mRNA transcripts to manipulate message stability and, correspondingly, expression level [51••]. This provides another technique, along with manipulation of translation initiation strength via the ribosome-binding site [52], for controlling the relative strength of expression of sets of genes independently. Other recent reports have developed and demonstrated useful protein expression systems for different applications via the araE, rhaBAD and nar promoters, which use arabinose, rhamnose and microaerobic conditions, respectively, to induce recombinant protein expression [53–55]. As in the case of mammalian systems, much recent work has focused on metabolic factors that might more broadly improve the effectiveness of recombinant E. coli for protein production in high cell density fermentors. Historically, acetate accumulation has provided perhaps the best example of such an issue for E. coli, and a variety of potential solutions have been reported (see [2•]). Recent strategies to address this issue include the development of more sophisticated glucose feeding strategies to minimize acetate accumulation and the use of a pyruvate kinase mutant [56,57]. The use of E. coli expressing Vitreoscilla hemoglobin to improve growth (and product yield) in microaerobic fermentor environments has also been further developed. Mutagenesis techniques have been used to generate improved hemoglobins for this task, and other bacteria have been screened for alternative hemoglobinlike proteins [58,59]. Other studies have used techniques 119 such as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)-based flux analysis to address questions regarding the mechanism of the hemoglobin benefit [60,61]. Recombinant protein expression has also been shown to elicit a variety of stress responses in E. coli, some of which were recently evaluated using DNA microarrays [62]. These stress responses, in turn, may be highly beneficial for recombinant protein expression; for example, the presence of stress-induced proteins was recently shown to increase the folding and formation of soluble human fibroblast growth factor 2 [63]. A strategy of inducing various stress responses before recombinant protein expression has been recently evaluated and revealed one case where the addition of dithiothreitol 20 min before induction of a green fluorescent protein–chloramphenicol acetyltransferase fusion protein led to increased activity of the model protein following induction [64]. Another report investigated the role that FIS (a DNA-binding protein implicated in stimulating ribosome synthesis) overexpression might have in increasing heterologous protein expression [65]. Finally, the possibility of a role for quorum-sensing mechanisms and the characterization of complex metabolic oscillations in recombinant E. coli fermentations highlight the complexity and the continuing potential for surprises [66,67]. In a different study, overexpression of the rspAB operon (involved in repression of σs-regulated proteins) led to improved recombinant protein production, presumably via a homoserine lactone-dependent mechanism; however, the possibility of cell-to-cell signaling effects was also raised in this study [68]. With the increasing volume of results from E. coli systems, particularly as a result of the application of genomic and proteomic technologies, the utility of mathematical frameworks to integrate and analyze this data has become more apparent. Recent models addressing this issue have been described both at the whole-cell level [69,70] and for specific elements such as protein folding and aggregation [71] and stress responses [72]. Other expression systems Both transgenic plants and animals, as well as plant tissue cultures, have been used to produce a variety of different recombinant proteins (reviewed in [73–75]). Whereas limits in glycosylation have been cited as one challenge for recombinant protein production in plants, the problem of proteolysis was also evaluated in a recent report on the potentially important application of antibody production in plant culture [76••]. Insect cells have been used in a variety of protein expression applications, particularly related to high-throughput expression of sequences for functional screening. One recent major focus has been on attempts to generate proteins with fully sialylated, complex oligosaccharides — a topic of some historical controversy (see [77]). Overexpression of appropriate galactosyltransferases and sialyltransferases has led to some success in generating sialylated oligosaccharides on insectderived proteins. It appears, however, that other limitations 120 Biochemical engineering might also be important for the consistent production of highly sialylated proteins [78,79,80••,81,82]. These include the deficiency of the N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase II enzyme responsible for initiation of the second complextype antennae of the oligosaccharide structure, as well as the production of the cytidine monophosphate-NeuAc precursor and host-specific effects. Yeast systems, of which the two major systems are Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Pichia pastoris, are also being pursued. The use of P. pastoris for the production of recombinant human chitinase for clinical studies was recently described in a perfusion system, yielding in excess of 300 mg/L/day [83]. P. pastoris has also been utilized in a fed-batch system to produce an insulin precursor at yields of 1.5 g/L [84]. Other reports have investigated more complex feeding strategies for these systems and include a case for the production of a recombinant scFv antibody fragment [85,86]. Recent studies with S. cerevisiae have explored both the strong cell-cycle dependence and metabolic burden of heterologous protein secretion in these cultures. This work provides both interesting points for comparison with analyses in microbial and mammalian systems, as well as an improved fundamental understanding of the use of yeast for recombinant protein production [87,88]. The efficiency of cell-free expression systems also continues to improve, both for more traditional systems using cell extracts and for systems reconstituted from purified components [89,90••] (reviewed in [2•]). Although currently useful for high-throughput screening applications, it will be interesting to see in coming years to what extent these systems could be useful for larger scale production needs. Linking expression and purification Increasing attention has been paid to optimizing expression systems in the context of the production process to aid in protein recovery and to improve overall yields and efficiencies. For example, the complementary expression of holin and lysozyme enzymes in E. coli to facilitate the release of products has been demonstrated for two different cases [91–93] The co-expression of an endonuclease was also used to improve the properties of the lyzed fermentation broth for subsequent processing [91]. A very thorough demonstration of the integration of fermentation and recovery was reported for human chymotrypsin B production in P. pastoris [94•,95]. In this analysis, high-density fed-batch fermentations and a lower density continuous process were evaluated with alternative recovery procedures, including two-phase extraction and expanded-bed chromatography, to develop an integrated process solution. In another report, a new affinity tag to provide additional means for efficient purification of the protein of interest was demonstrated [96]. Conclusions In recent years, a variety of different platforms have been investigated for the production of recombinant therapeutic proteins. CHO and NS0 murine myeloma cells are the predominant mammalian cell lines used, and recent progress has been made in promoter systems and in the manipulation of these cell lines to improve glycoprotein production in fermentors. Rational engineering of E. coli has also continued, with notable advancements in improving the cellular environment for protein folding. Progress has been made in addressing the potential limitations of a variety of other systems including yeast, insect and plant culture systems. One general trend across these platforms has been an expansion in the focus of study. Whereas in the past work has focused specifically on heterologous product protein expression, it has now expanded to include efforts to improve global cellular properties to enable more efficient and effective production in industrial environments. Another recent trend has been an increased focus on integrated bioprocessing approaches, such as the development of features in expression systems specifically targeted towards improving recovery and purification of the protein of interest. Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank John Joly, Brad Snedecor and Gian Polastri for discussions and critical review of the manuscript. References and recommended reading Papers of particular interest, published within the annual period of review, have been highlighted as: • of special interest •• of outstanding interest 1. Chu L, Robinson DK: Industrial choices for protein production by large-scale cell culture. Curr Opin Biotechnol 2001, 12 :180-187. 2. 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