Change of insulin-like growth factor gene expression in Chinese hamster ovary cells cultured in serum-free media

Although the sera used in animal cell culture media provide the macromolecules, nutrients, hormones, and growth factors necessary to support cell growth, it could also be an obstacle to the production of recombinant proteins in animal cell culture systems used in many sectors of the biotechnology industry. For this reason, many research groups, including our laboratory, have been trying to develop serum-free media (SFM) or serum-supplemented media (SSM) for special or multi-purpose cell lines. The Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell, for example, is frequently used to produce proteins and is especially valuable in the large-scale production of pharmaceutically important proteins, yet information about its genome is lacking. Also, SFMs have only been evaluated by comparing growth patterns for cells grown in SFMs with those grown in SSM or by measuring the titer of the target protein obtained from cells grown in each type of medium. These are not reliable methods of obtaining the type of information needed to determine whether an SFM should be replaced with an SSM. We carried out a cDNA microarray analysis to evaluate MED-3, an SFM developed in our laboratory, as a CHO culture medium. When CHO cells were cultured in MED-3 instead of an SSM, several genes associated with cell growth were down-regulated, although this change diminished over time. We found that the insulin-like growth factor (IGF) gene was representative of the proteins that were down-regulated in cells cultured in MED-3. When several key supplements-including insulin, transferrin, ethanolamine, and selenium-were removed from MED-3, theIGF expression was consistently down-regulated and cell growth decreased proportionately. Based on these results, we concluded that when an SFM is used as a culture medium, it is important to supplement it with substances that can help the cells maintain a high level ofIGF expression. The data presented in this study, therefore, might provide useful information for the design and development of SFM or SSM, as well as for the design of genome-based studies of CHO cells to determine how they can be used optimally for protein production in pharmaceutical and biomedical research.