Novel High-Yield Virus Production Cell Lines for Research and Industry

ProBioGen recognized the need to overcome the limits of existing virus and viral vector production. Therefore, we created well defined, permanent cell lines for scalable and flexible virus production systems. All our proprietary cell lines are characterized by excellent productivity, safety, and stability. They are used in the industrial production of virus-based vaccines or recombinant proteins and are suitable for the manufacture of human and animal vaccines.

To create our designer cell lines, we immortalized primary cells from selected tissues with a combination of E1 genes from human adenovirus type 5. The approach is consistent with the “defined risk” guidelines issued by the FDA: the immortalizing genes are known and traceable. The selected genes have an additional benefit – they modulate cellular pathways, resulting in higher productivity of unrelated viruses. Our Adenovirus gene E1 modified (AGE1) cell lines meet host requirements of a wide spectrum of viruses from different genera.

We created them from various species and tissues for their respective purposes:

From Muscovy duck retina: AGE1.CR®

The AGE1.CR® duck cell line is our most prominent designer cell line and serves the industrial, GMP-compliant virus-based vaccine production in large bioreactors. Due to its genetic stability, it is an ideal host to generate complementing cell lines (e.g. for alphavirus and paramyxovirus-based vectors). This cell line, modified with an additional gene that enhances productivity (AGE1.CR.PIX®) with its specialized media, represents the most advanced production platform for poxviruses grown on avian cells (MVA, fowlpox, canarypox).

The cell line is permissive for a wide spectrum of animal and human viruses including influenza (broad strain spectrum, including low pathogenicity field isolates), rabies virus, Newcastle disease virus (NDV, Duck and goose parvovirus, egg drop syndrome virus (EDS), infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV), turkey rhinotracheitis virus (TRT), Marek disease virus (MDV), vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) and herpes virus of turkey (HVT).

From Muscovy duck embryonic fibroblasts: AGE1.CS

AGE1.CS is well suited for virus propagation and analytics on adherent cells replacing primary chicken fibroblasts.

From human neuronal cells: AGE1.HN®

AGE1.HN is suitable for industrial, GMP-compliant virus-based vaccine production including RCA free adenovirus vectors, for recombinant proteins with specific complex glycans, other specific posttranslational modifications, and for proteins suffering from instability or susceptibility to proteolysis.

From various body segments of embryos of the Egyptian fruit bat: AGE1.RO

Fruit bats are a major animal reservoir for different pathogens with zoonotic potential such as Ebola and Marburg viruses. AGE1.RO cells are used for productive propagation of these filoviruses and represent a valuable research tool and substrate for viruses that are otherwise difficult to propagate.

HEK293 - the traditional work horse for gene therapy vectors

The proprietary, suspension HEK293 is growing in chemically defined medium and is well suited for the production of AAV, lenti- and retroviruses in an industrial scale in large bioreactors. Generation of a lentiviral packaging/producer cell line is offered as a service.

Advantages

  • Fully scalable and flexible production process for use both in humans and for animal vaccines
  • Free of adventitious agents and particles associated with reverse transcriptase activity
  • Fully transferable processes
  • Full documentation available regarding origin, cell history and raw materials
  • Master Cell Banks extensively characterized according to EU and US guidelines for the AGE1.CR.PIX cell line