PUBLICATION Mammalian Cell Designers’ Laboratory

MISSION

Our mission is to engineer next-generation mammalian cell factories
for the production of complex biotherapeutics.
By integrating synthetic biology, genome engineering, and autonomous experimentation,
we aim to transform cell line development from empirical optimization into a predictive engineering discipline.

Journal Articles

A metabolic CRISPR-Cas9 screen in Chinese hamster ovary cells identifies glutamine-sensitive genes
Author
Karen Julie la Cour Karottki*, Hooman Hefzi, Songyuan Li, Lasse Ebdrup Pedersen, Philipp N Spahn, Chintan Joshi, David Ruckerbauer, Juan A Hernandez Bort, Alex Thomas, Jae Seong Lee, Nicole Borth, Gyun Min Lee, Helene Faustrup Kildegaard‡, Nathan E Lewis‡
Journal
Metabolic Engineering
Vol
66
Page
114-122
Year
2021

Media and feed optimization have fueled many-fold improvements in mammalian biopharmaceutical production, but genome editing offers an emerging avenue for further enhancing cell metabolism and bioproduction. However, the complexity of metabolism, involving thousands of genes, makes it unclear which engineering strategies will result in desired traits. Here we present a comprehensive pooled CRISPR screen for CHO cell metabolism, including ~16,000 gRNAs against ~2500 metabolic enzymes and regulators. Using this screen, we identified a glutamine response network in CHO cells. Glutamine is particularly important since it is often over-fed to drive increased TCA cycle flux, but toxic ammonia may accumulate. With the screen we found one orphan glutamine-responsive gene with no clear connection to our network. Knockout of this novel and poorly characterized lipase, Abhd11, substantially increased growth in glutamine-free media by altering the regulation of the TCA cycle. Thus, the screen provides an invaluable targeted platform to comprehensively study genes involved in any metabolic trait, and elucidate novel regulators of metabolism.