Production of Antibody in Insect Cells

Abstract

Insect cells have proven to be an excellent platform for the production of recombinant antibodies. The baculovirus – insect cell system directs transient expression of recombinant antibodies in batch culture upon infection of insect cells with a recombinant baculovirus, while stably transformed insect cells allow constitutive or inducible production. Both systems provide rapid, simple ways of producing considerable amounts of recombinant antibody molecules with biological activities, in particular antibody fragments, such as scFv and Fab fragments, and their derivatives. Therefore, insect cell expression systems would be highly valuable for high-throughput antibody production. In addition, the display of heterologous proteins, including antibody fragments, on the baculovirus surface might be a useful tool for the generation and production of monoclonal antibodies with high affinity and specificity.