Chinese hamster ovary cells can produce galactose-α-1,3-galactose antigens on proteins
Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells are widely used for the manufacture of biotherapeutics, in part because of their ability to produce proteins with desirable properties, including 'human-like' glycosylation profiles. For biotherapeutics production, control of glycosylation is critical beca...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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Nature Publishing Group
2014
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/89032 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9344-0205 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2085-7840 |
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| author | Bosques, Carlos J. Collins, Brian E. Meador, James W. Sarvaiya, Hetal Murphy, Jennifer L. DelloRusso, Guy Bulik, Dorota A. Hsu, I-Hsuan Washburn, Nathaniel Sipsey, Sandra F. Myette, James R. Raman, Rahul Sasisekharan, Ram Venkataraman, Ganesh Shriver, Zachary H. |
| author2 | Harvard University--MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology |
| author_facet | Harvard University--MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology Bosques, Carlos J. Collins, Brian E. Meador, James W. Sarvaiya, Hetal Murphy, Jennifer L. DelloRusso, Guy Bulik, Dorota A. Hsu, I-Hsuan Washburn, Nathaniel Sipsey, Sandra F. Myette, James R. Raman, Rahul Sasisekharan, Ram Venkataraman, Ganesh Shriver, Zachary H. |
| author_sort | Bosques, Carlos J. |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells are widely used for the manufacture of biotherapeutics, in part because of their ability to produce proteins with desirable properties, including 'human-like' glycosylation profiles. For biotherapeutics production, control of glycosylation is critical because it has a profound effect on protein function, including half-life and efficacy. Additionally, specific glycan structures may adversely affect their safety profile. For example, the terminal galactose-α-1,3-galactose (α-Gal) antigen can react with circulating anti α-Gal antibodies present in most individuals. It is now understood that murine cell lines, such as SP2 or NSO, typical manufacturing cell lines for biotherapeutics, contain the necessary biosynthetic machinery to produce proteins containing α-Gal epitopes. Furthermore, the majority of adverse clinical events associated with an induced IgE-mediated anaphylaxis response in patients treated with the commercial antibody Erbitux (cetuximab) manufactured in a murine myeloma cell line have been attributed to the presence of the α-Gal moiety. Even so, it is generally accepted that CHO cells lack the biosynthetic machinery to synthesize glycoproteins with α-Gal antigens. Contrary to this assumption, we report here the identification of the CHO ortholog of N-acetyllactosaminide 3-α-galactosyltransferase-1, which is responsible for the synthesis of the α-Gal epitope. We find that the enzyme product of this CHO gene is active and that glycosylated protein products produced in CHO contain the signature α-Gal antigen because of the action of this enzyme. Furthermore, characterizing the commercial therapeutic protein abatacept (Orencia) manufactured in CHO cell lines, we also identified the presence of α-Gal. Finally, we find that the presence of the α-Gal epitope likely arises during clonal selection because different subclonal populations from the same parental cell line differ in their expression of this gene. Although the specific levels of α-Gal required to trigger anaphylaxis reactions are not known and are likely product specific, the fact that humans contain high levels of circulating anti-α-Gal antibodies suggests that minimizing (or at least controlling) the levels of these epitopes during biotherapeutics development may be beneficial to patients. Furthermore, the approaches described here to monitor α-Gal levels may prove useful in industry for the surveillance and control of α-Gal levels during protein manufacture. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:08:02Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/89032 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:08:02Z |
| publishDate | 2014 |
| publisher | Nature Publishing Group |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/890322022-09-23T11:07:43Z Chinese hamster ovary cells can produce galactose-α-1,3-galactose antigens on proteins Bosques, Carlos J. Collins, Brian E. Meador, James W. Sarvaiya, Hetal Murphy, Jennifer L. DelloRusso, Guy Bulik, Dorota A. Hsu, I-Hsuan Washburn, Nathaniel Sipsey, Sandra F. Myette, James R. Raman, Rahul Sasisekharan, Ram Venkataraman, Ganesh Shriver, Zachary H. Harvard University--MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biological Engineering Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT Raman, Rahul Shriver, Zachary H. Sasisekharan, Ram Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells are widely used for the manufacture of biotherapeutics, in part because of their ability to produce proteins with desirable properties, including 'human-like' glycosylation profiles. For biotherapeutics production, control of glycosylation is critical because it has a profound effect on protein function, including half-life and efficacy. Additionally, specific glycan structures may adversely affect their safety profile. For example, the terminal galactose-α-1,3-galactose (α-Gal) antigen can react with circulating anti α-Gal antibodies present in most individuals. It is now understood that murine cell lines, such as SP2 or NSO, typical manufacturing cell lines for biotherapeutics, contain the necessary biosynthetic machinery to produce proteins containing α-Gal epitopes. Furthermore, the majority of adverse clinical events associated with an induced IgE-mediated anaphylaxis response in patients treated with the commercial antibody Erbitux (cetuximab) manufactured in a murine myeloma cell line have been attributed to the presence of the α-Gal moiety. Even so, it is generally accepted that CHO cells lack the biosynthetic machinery to synthesize glycoproteins with α-Gal antigens. Contrary to this assumption, we report here the identification of the CHO ortholog of N-acetyllactosaminide 3-α-galactosyltransferase-1, which is responsible for the synthesis of the α-Gal epitope. We find that the enzyme product of this CHO gene is active and that glycosylated protein products produced in CHO contain the signature α-Gal antigen because of the action of this enzyme. Furthermore, characterizing the commercial therapeutic protein abatacept (Orencia) manufactured in CHO cell lines, we also identified the presence of α-Gal. Finally, we find that the presence of the α-Gal epitope likely arises during clonal selection because different subclonal populations from the same parental cell line differ in their expression of this gene. Although the specific levels of α-Gal required to trigger anaphylaxis reactions are not known and are likely product specific, the fact that humans contain high levels of circulating anti-α-Gal antibodies suggests that minimizing (or at least controlling) the levels of these epitopes during biotherapeutics development may be beneficial to patients. Furthermore, the approaches described here to monitor α-Gal levels may prove useful in industry for the surveillance and control of α-Gal levels during protein manufacture. National Center for Research Resources (U.S.) (Grant P41 RR018501-01) 2014-08-25T17:55:27Z 2014-08-25T17:55:27Z 2010-11 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 1087-0156 1546-1696 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/89032 Bosques, Carlos J, Brian E Collins, James W Meador, Hetal Sarvaiya, Jennifer L Murphy, Guy DelloRusso, Dorota A Bulik, et al. “Chinese Hamster Ovary Cells Can Produce Galactose-α-1,3-Galactose Antigens on Proteins.” Nature Biotechnology 28, no. 11 (November 2010): 1153–1156. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9344-0205 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2085-7840 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nbt1110-1153 Nature Biotechnology Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf Nature Publishing Group PMC |
| spellingShingle | Bosques, Carlos J. Collins, Brian E. Meador, James W. Sarvaiya, Hetal Murphy, Jennifer L. DelloRusso, Guy Bulik, Dorota A. Hsu, I-Hsuan Washburn, Nathaniel Sipsey, Sandra F. Myette, James R. Raman, Rahul Sasisekharan, Ram Venkataraman, Ganesh Shriver, Zachary H. Chinese hamster ovary cells can produce galactose-α-1,3-galactose antigens on proteins |
| title | Chinese hamster ovary cells can produce galactose-α-1,3-galactose antigens on proteins |
| title_full | Chinese hamster ovary cells can produce galactose-α-1,3-galactose antigens on proteins |
| title_fullStr | Chinese hamster ovary cells can produce galactose-α-1,3-galactose antigens on proteins |
| title_full_unstemmed | Chinese hamster ovary cells can produce galactose-α-1,3-galactose antigens on proteins |
| title_short | Chinese hamster ovary cells can produce galactose-α-1,3-galactose antigens on proteins |
| title_sort | chinese hamster ovary cells can produce galactose α 1 3 galactose antigens on proteins |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/89032 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9344-0205 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2085-7840 |
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