Animal Free Sustainable Cytokines for Stem Cell Culture

Tebubio and ORF-Genetics are proud to announce their cooperation with the goal to supply the European Life Science Community with absolutely animal free Cytokines and Growth factors especially produced for the Stem Cell environment. Traditional cell culture media uses Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS), a naturally occurring "cocktail" of growth factors and albumin. But if you wish to remove the serum to gain better control or avoid animal-derived products, you have to add specific growth factors (preferably animal-free, animal-component-free) to keep the cells alive. Of course the gold-standard are chemically clearly defined media with animal as well as endotoxin free supplements e.g. growth factors.

These defined media become more and more standard in 3D cell culture models, in stem cell culture and especially in cell and gene therapy approaches.

Plant Derived, Highly Active Cytokines and Growth Factors

Our Iceland based partner ORF Genetics is a pioneer in producing huge amounts of proteins in plants (barley), grown in greenhouses heated by environmental-friendly and sustainable geothermal energy (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1: ORF Genetics has developed an expression system using barley grain to produce recombinant proteins for stem cell technology research and other research fields.
Image credit: ORF Genetics.

• Improved resistance to common qPCR inhibitors  
• Enhanced multiplexing – accurate co-detection of multiple targets in a single reaction
• High sensitivity – detects as few as 1–10 copies per reaction
• Universal compatibility – supplied with a separate ROX vial  

• qPCR inhibitor rich samples
• Viral DNA/RNA detection
• Genotyping / SNP analysis
• Copy number variation (CNV)
• Automation and high-throughput screening platforms
• Clinical research / in vitro diagnostic workflows
• Environmental and food testing

Highly Active Cytokines and Grow Factors

ORF Genetics has developed an innovative expression system that produces highly active cytokines and growth factors. Their activity is comparable to products made in E. coli and mammalian expression systems (Fig. 2A and 2B).

Key benefits include:

• No contact with animal-derived materials
• No use of animal products during production
• Complete absence of endotoxin/LPS typically associated with bacterial expression systems

There is sometimes concern about whether plant-derived cytokines closely reflect normal physiological conditions. However, cytokines produced in E. coli are widely used without similar scrutiny. In this context, plant-based expression represents a strong and appropriate alternative to bacterial systems.

To demonstrate performance, ORF Genetics conducted direct 1:1 comparisons of its human Flt3-ligand (Fig. 2A) and human M-CSF (Fig. 2B) with leading competitor products. In standard cell-based assays, all products showed equivalent biological activity, as measured by ED50 values for cytokines and growth factors.

Fig. 2A

Fig. 2B

Key advantages of ORF Genetics cytokines and growth factors include:

• Animal-free production with no endotoxin contamination

• Expression in a system biologically closer to mammalian cells than bacteria

• Sustainable and environmentally friendly manufacturing

• Scalable production that minimizes lot-to-lot variability

• Long shelf life (>5 years) and competitive pricing

Key advantages of ORF Genetics cytokines and growth factors include:

• Animal-free production with no endotoxin contamination

• Expression in a system biologically closer to mammalian cells than bacteria

• Sustainable and environmentally friendly manufacturing

• Scalable production that minimizes lot-to-lot variability

• Long shelf life (>5 years) and competitive pricing

• References

  
  Article content created by Tebubio using courtesy materials provided by ORG Genetics.