Production of recombinant therapeutic proteins in human cells: current achievements and future perspectives

Over the past 20 years the demand for recombinant proteins has increased significantly. Mammalian cell lines have been extensively used to produce recombinant proteins. This expression system offers several advantages over microbial systems, mammalian cells have the cellular machinery to promote the secretion of the recombinant product and the posttranslational modifications, like glycosylation that is present in many of recombinant therapeutic proteins in the market. Human cell lines have emerged as a new and powerful alternative for production of such products. These cells are able to produce recombinant proteins with posttranslational modifications more similar to their natural counterparts, producing proteins with human-like glycosylation pattern avoiding immunogenic reactions against epitopes nonhumans. This review presents the available human cell lines that can be used in pharmaceutical industry, the advantages of this expression system and the main efforts made in this field.