SweetBac: Applying MultiBac Technology Towards Flexible Modification of Insect Cell Glycosylation

Observed different glycosylation patterns of glycoconjugates (recombinantly) produced in various eukaryotic organisms are a direct consequence of differences in numerous proteins involved in biosynthesis of the relevant glycan chains in these species. The need for efficient, robust and flexible methods for recombinant expression of proteins is met by the recently described MultiBac technology, an advanced and optimized baculovirus-based system for simultaneous recombinant protein expression in insect cells. A derivative of MultiBac technology, the SweetBac system aims at the modification of the glycosylation potential of insect cells as expression hosts. The application of SweetBac, including the methods needed to investigate the glycosylation pattern of the purified recombinant protein, is described in this chapter.