Five potential N-glycosylation

sites in the globular head of each HA monomer are selected, but only selleck chemical up to three are used [26], [27] and [28]. Also, there seems to be a relationship between antigenic variation and the number and position of N-glycosylation site which can regulate the avidity and specificity of the union of the HA protein to its receptor, the influenza strain virulence and the evasion to antibodies recognition [25]. Prokaryotes and inferior eukaryotes expression systems are able to glycosylate [29] and [30]. However, the glycosylation phenomenon in the traditional prokaryotic expression system Escherichia coli is very rare [31]. Inferior eukaryotes, like yeasts, are able to perform N-glycosylation, but the hyper-mannosylated glycans attached to the polypeptide chain are significantly different from those of mammalian cells [32]. Although there are some strategies

in bacteria and yeast to efficiently obtain the HA molecule as a vaccine candidate able to confer protection in mice [6] and [7], mammalian cells are the closest alternative to produce a soluble HA protein with post-translational modifications similar to the native one, thus preserving the original properties of this molecule. In fact, we have already obtained the HAH5 protein in mammalian cell culture able to induce high levels of HIA in chickens [8]. Also, the protein bands obtained for the HAH5 protein in SDS-PAGE under reducing condition corresponds www.selleckchem.com/Bcl-2.html to a glycosylated version of this protein, since we have already demonstrated that the deglycosylation of the HAH5 protein with the enzyme PNGase-F provides a lower band pattern [8]. In very the last decade, mammalian cell culture has become the most demanded expression system to obtain complex recombinant proteins in response to their increasing need for structural and functional studies and for field experiments. There are several cell lines used for this purpose, such as HEK-293, BHK, NSO, among others. However, CHO cells have been so far the most utilized [33] and [34]. Currently, the majority of recombinant proteins intended to biopharmaceutical

industry is produced in this cell line because it has several advantages with respect to the other cell lines: (i) its safety is thoroughly demonstrated, so it is easy to overcome regulatory issues in order to gain the consent of supervisory institutions; (ii) low productivity can be improved by gene amplification systems available for CHO cells and (iii) the change of culture conditions from adherent serum-dependent to serum-free suspension culture can be easily achieved for this cells. This is a desired feature for scaling up the production system and to reduce the costs [10]. All these characteristics of CHO cells make them a suitable expression system to produce antigens of the HPAIV H5N1 in a safe way and with higher quality.