I read your post on host cell choice, but I was wondering is there ever a time when HEK is best or are there certain applications where there is a clear reason to use one over another. Would you ever use a cell line other than CHO or HEK, for instance if the manufacturing cell line was going to be NS0 or SP2/0

Answer

Hybridoma cells like NS0 and SP2/0 were used as the cell line of choice very early on for the development of therapeutic recombinant protein drugs. CHO cell lines have now been well characterized, have post translational modification profiles closer to human cells than hybridoma cells, and have a regulatory track record of use in manufacturing biotherapeutics. Thus, many companies continue to rely on stable CHO cell lines for manufacturing. We do, however, have clients that have chosen to use other cell lines for bioproduction including BHK21, Vero, CAP-T and insect cells. We generally recommend that early-stage research be conducted in the cell type identified for manufacturing. Ideally, a company’s transfection platform has the performance and flexibility to allow them to use whatever cell type is most scientifically relevant, rather than their transfection platform dictating what cell type they must use.