On-demand insulin manufacturing using cell-free systems with an "on-column" conversion approach

Recent studies project that the prevalence of diabetes is expected to increase significantly and lead to escalating demand on the insulin supply chain. Despite being the first recombinant therapeutic approved by the FDA, insulin remains challenging to access for many around the globe. Here we report on advancements in manufacturing insulin using cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS) systems to rapidly produce mature desB30-insulin in less than a day. This is a major advance towards decentralizing insulin manufacturing and bringing production closer to the point-of-care, thereby improving diabetic patient accessibility. To this end, a purified cell-free extract, PUREfrex® 2.1, was utilized to synthesize a tagged proinsulin construct that can be captured and converted into mature insulin using an on-column affinity chromatography process. Notably, two chaperones, peptidyl prolyl isomerase (FkpA), and seven kilodalton protein (Skp) were observed to play a critical role during cell-free expression of proinsulin. The proinsulin was then immobilized on a Ni-NTA column where the purification and conversion of cell-free products were performed sequentially to yield desB30-insulin. Following further optimization, this method serves as a time and resource-efficient production process as compared to current methods. When applied simultaneously, the cell-free expression and on-column conversion methods reported here can be adopted to enable rapid on-demand insulin manufacturing in order to improve the accessibility of insulin and prevent future shortages.