Leveraging Transposase Technologies To Optimize Cell Line Development

By ATUM & Cergentis

While many consider transposases, enzymes that move transposons from one location in the genome to another without using RNA intermediates, the essential component necessary to developing high-expression cell lines, prioritizing transposon design is perhaps the most important variable to consider when pursuing improvements in cell line development. This is because optimized transposons, integrated consistently with transposase-mediated gene delivery technologies, can improve product quality attributes or down-regulate endogenous gene expression.

Transposon-based platforms can help developers avoid major challenges presented by random integration or viral-based delivery systems, which can result in unpredictable and inconsistent gene expression, depending on a transgene’s integration location. Some of the leading causes of instability in CHO cells are the deletions, truncations, and random concatemerizations that can occur when using random integration.

The more regulated and efficient genomic insertion possible with transposase-based technologies can enable a wide array of genomic manipulations. Moreover, the genetic stability and integrity of this transposon integration can be validated with Targeted Locus Amplification (TLA) technology, which can more accurately identify if and where a transposon has been integrated.