Refolding of Inclusion Bodies
A modern solution to overcome challenges in Microbial Manufacturing
Escherichia coli, a widely used host for producing over 25% of all recombinant biopharmaceuticals1, is favored for its well-understood genetics, low cultivation costs, and high production capacity. Therefore, E. coli and recombinant biopharmaceuticals play a pivotal role in the microbial manufacturing of biopharmaceutical compounds.
During the microbial manufacturing process, the production of recombinant proteins often results in the formation of insoluble product aggregates, also referred to as Inclusion Bodies (IBs). Despite their stability and purity, IBs complicate the manufacturing process by requiring specific downstream operations. One solution to ease the following downstream challenges is to solubilize the IBs and give the proteins their native form via in-vitro refolding. The native proteins can then undergo further purification to produce a pure and active biopharmaceutical.
Learn more about in-vitro refolding, a crucial step in biopharmaceutical manufacturing from an industrial standpoint. Click the following link to read the scientific review by Boehringer Ingelheim’s experts.
Refolding in the modern biopharmaceutical industry - ScienceDirect
1 Walsh, G., 2018. Biopharmaceutical benchmarks 2018. Nat. Biotechnol. 36 (12), 1136–1145. https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt.4305.