Alternative to freeze-thaw method for cell disruption & gene therapy

Delivering gene therapy using viral vectors is the preferred way to treat disease at the genetic level.

Adenoviruses and adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) target a wide range of host cells and achieve high transfection rates without integrating themselves into the genome.

While these delivery methods are successful, harvesting them from cells presents many challenges for medical manufacturers, who use them in both oncology treatments and vaccines.

The traditional freeze-thaw method has been used for years. While successful at harvesting viruses, it is costly in time, labor, and product losses through contamination, ultimately producing inconsistent results.

Most importantly, the freeze-thaw method is incredibly difficult to scale up to production level, meaning it is difficult to deliver adenoviruses and AAVs on a large scale.

The critical challenges for vaccine manufacturers are:

• Harvesting AAVs efficiently
• Making the harvest scalable and purification processes much easier.

Microfluidics™ offer an accessible alternative to the freeze-thaw method through the robust, efficient, and fully scalable Microfluidizer^® technology.

What is Microfluidizer^® technology?

Microfluidizer^® processors are high shear homogenizers that perform cell disruption more efficiently than other methods.

The fixed-geometry Interaction Chamber™, part of the unique Microfluidizer^® processor design, is the key to this success.

Inside the Interaction Chamber^™, material is subject to a uniform application of shear and pressure, breaking cells gently yet efficiently. When compared with the freeze-thaw method, the Microfluidizer^® processor ruptures cells in fewer passes, taking a fraction of the time needed.

Whether developing an R&D batch of a few milliliters, or production quantities of several liters, the processing quality is the same. The Interaction Chambers™ expose every microliter of material to the same conditions, leading to minimal product wastage.

Most importantly, the capacity of our processors is directly scalable, simply by increasing the number of micro-channels inside the Interaction Chambers™ on the processor.

Benefits of using Microfluidizer^® technology for cell disruption

Microfluidizer^® technology does more than just improve your product yield.

Our equipment is designed to fit into, compliment, and enhance your existing processes, while also providing the flexibility to scale up production in the future.

Here are some of the benefits you’ll see after adopting our industry-leading technology:

• Higher product yield: strong enough to rupture cells without breaking vectors.
• cGMP-compatibility: our range complies with cGMP requirements.
• Pressure alleviated from downstream processes such as filtration
• Greater lysing efficiency: get the same results, in less time, using less energy and with greater product recovery.
• Chemical-free lysis: less product contamination and no need to buy costly chemicals.

For further guidance on how to improve your cell disruption process for gene therapy, download our applications note Microfluidizer^® Technology in Cell Lysing for Gene Therapy. We also have a range of Cell Disruption resource available here.