Expansion Of Adherent HEK293t Cells In Flasks In Chemically Defined Cell Culture Media

By Atherly Pennybaker, Media Formulation and Product Applications Specialist, InVitria

For many years, HEK293 cells have been widely accepted in the biotechnology industry due to their remarkable susceptibility for transfection and production of clinically relevant viruses or therapeutic proteins. As the growing field of gene therapy has continued to show promise in the clinic, the demand for a scalable vector production platform with HEK293t has increased as well. These cells are the current workhorse in the evolving field of gene therapy because of their ability to achieve up to one log higher viral titer compared to cultures of HEK293 in suspension. Traditionally, these cells are expanded and subsequently transfected in media supplemented with fetal bovine serum (FBS), however at clinical manufacturing scale, the global supply of FBS cannot support the high volume demand and the lack of lot-to-lot consistency of serum or blood derived proteins encourages the use of chemically defined media. Here, we highlight the OptiPEAK HEK293t, a chemically defined, serum free media to expand HEK293t cells from seed train to full scale manufacturing for gene therapies in active development today.