Discussion

The ability to express complex proteins using recombinant technology is critical to advance basic research and for developing new therapeutics and vaccines. The ExpreS2 system, based on stable transformation of Drosophila S2 cells, has been successfully used to express a broad range of proteins, even certain proteins that had failed to express in other insect cell or mammalian cell-based systems.

This poster contains examples of the ways in which ExpreS2ion and its collaborating partners are using the ExpreS2 system. Expressed proteins are being used in structural biology to further the understanding of certain targets for drug and vaccine development, and to produce challenging antigens in the correct conformation for raising antibodies. More than 200 human, viral and parasite proteins, engineered Fab fragments, and antibodies have now been expressed with ExpreS2 with an overall success rate of 90%.

One of the important advantages of the ExpreS2 system is to provide seamless progress from early research, through to clinical development and commercial manufacturing. Other expression systems that are useful in early research may not be adapted to large-scale, regulated manufacturing. Two examples shown here relating to vaccine development, where ExpreS2 was used to express malaria antigens. These very promising antigens had failed to express in various other systems. Using ExpreS2, the vaccine development teams were able to produce a broad range of antigen variants to select the most suitable for vaccination, and to develop a process for producing the antigens, in preparation for clinical testing.

The ExpreS2 system is property of ExpreS2ion Biotechnologies, a contract research organisation based in Denmark, focusing on supporting protein production, cell line development, process development and process transfer, based on ExpreS2. The system is available through services by ExpreS2ion or licensing.