Lentiviral vector-mediated genetic modification of cell substrates for the manufacture of proteins and other biologics.

Transduction with Lentiviral vectors has been shown to be the most efficient method for the stable delivery of nucleic acid sequences into mammalian cells. Lentiviral vectors have been widely used in research and have recently shown success in clinical trials for human gene therapy. In this paper, we describe the use of lentiviral vectors to generate genetically modified cell substrates for the manufacture of proteins and other complex biologics. The use of lentiviral vectors for the generation of genetically modified cell substrates for the production of biologic material has several advantages over other systems: (1) highly productive mammalian cell lines can be rapidly generated without selection or gene amplification; (2) the high number of vector copies are distributed throughout the open chromatin of the genome, resulting in cell lines that are extremely stable for high levels of gene expression and, consequently, protein production; and (3) high levels of protein glycosylation are maintained despite very high levels of protein production. These advantages offer the potential to significantly improve the quality, time-to-market, and manufacturing cost of biologics for human use.