Dr. Lina Chakrabarti from AstraZeneca highlights the benefits of using Namocell single cell dispensers in cell line development. The instruments enhanced efficiency, predictability, and robustness of workflows, aiding safe and cost-effective biopharmaceutical manufacturing. The article details how Namocell instruments contributed to these improvements in cell line development.
The Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell line is widely used for the production of therapeutic antibodies. In a typical cell line development workflow, CHO cells are transfected with an immunoglobulin (IgG) expressing vector. After transfection, single, viable CHO cells are isolated for clonal expansion while high titer clones are screened for stability and productivity. These high producing CHO cell lines are then expanded for large scale antibody production.
Generating cell lines for therapeutic antibodies requires clonal cell populations. A critical first step involves isolating single, viable cells. Single cell isolation for cell line development has traditionally been done with either Fluorescence-Activated Cell Sorters (FACS) or limiting dilutions, each of which have inherent cost and efficiency drawbacks.
FACS instruments sort cells at high pressure (up to 70 psi), which is harsh on the cells and results in reduced cell viability. This manual screening method is also difficult to use and prone to cross-contamination and clogging.
Limiting dilution, while gentler than FACS, is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and offers poor single cell isolation efficiency. This has led to increased demand for automated, high-throughput solutions.
In CHO cell lines, CHO cells are transfected with a plasmid, encoding the desired protein for mass production. Following selection, transfected cells in suspension are loaded into one of Namocell’s proprietary microfluidic cell cartridges and dispensed with the Pala Single and Bulk Cell Sorter into 96- or 384-well plates for clonal outgrowth. These benchtop instruments offer quick, gentle cell isolation, helping to preserve cell viability and integrity. Following clonal expansion, colonies are analyzed via ELISA to determine antibody titers.
Empower your cell line development workflow with the fastest and simplest way to identify and isolate single cells, all achieved seamlessly in one single step.
Proprietary benchtop sorting technology is affordable, user-friendly, and requires zero special training. Fully automated with a low cost of operation.
Low-pressure sorting capabilities are gentle on your precious cells, helping to preserve viability and integrity throughout the cell line development workflow.
A comparative study was performed to serve as a reference for expected deposition efficiency. The results found that Namocell instruments are highly efficient and consistent at dispensing single cells (80-90% with mammalian cells) compared to manual pipetting (~30%).
Namocell’s Single Cell Dispenser was used to sort CHO cells for clonal outgrowth alongside both limiting dilution (LDC) and a FACS. Cells sorted with Namocell showed higher cloning efficiencies than LDC and FACS.
Dr. Oscar Perez-Leal, M.D, Assistant Professor, Temple University, School of Pharmacy
Dr. Lina Chakrabarti, Associate Director R&D, AstraZeneca
Results from Namocell single cell dispensers showed a 3x increase in IgG production from cold-captured cells compared to non-captured cells.
Learn how the team at AstraZeneca improved the efficiency, predictability, and robustness of cell line development workflows for safe and cost-efficient biopharmaceutical manufacturing.
Learn how innovative Namocell technology can help simplify and empower a number of single cell applications. Watch the webinar for practical tips to optimize results.
Enrichment of High Titer CHO Cells
Single Cell Dispensing Efficiency
Generating Clonal GFP Cell Lines
Cold-Capture Enrichment of High Titer IgG-Producing Clones
Unlabeled Sample Prep Protocol
Practical Tips for Single Cell Isolation
Webinar: Fast, Gentle and Easy Single Cell Isolation
Webinar: Chemical Cytoprotection for Stress-Free Use of hPSC’s
We’ve been using the Namo to do single cell sorting for genomics/ transcriptomics applications as well as for colony selection for tissue culture. We’re overall very satisfied with our results and find the setup to be very easy, as well as standard maintenance. After sterility protocols (which can take an hour), being able to immediately jump to sorting in less than ten minutes has saved us time and precious samples.
Noelani Kamelamela
Here at Cytovance, we love our Namocell. This machine has increased our plating capacity and efficiency nearly four-fold. The accuracy of Namocell’s 384-well plating coupled with the easy changes between samples has been a game changer for our workflow.
Mike Brem
Namocell Hana single cell dispenser provides a great solution for gentle single cell cloning using sterile disposable cartridges. The system is easy to use and quick to initialize. Hana combines the advantages of FACS and microfluidic cell dispensing to enable high assurance of monoclonality with high throughput and great cell viability.
Mandy Yim
Namocell’s disposable cartridges have allowed us to increase the throughput of the validation of our CRISPR engineered cell lines since we can sort a full plate in less than 3 minutes, and can move to the next plate without the hassle of cleaning. This outstanding product is paired with Namocell’s exceptional customer service that has been responsive and attentive to our needs. While evaluating different FACS machines, we simply did not find a rival that combined Namocell’s simplicity, performance and value, all while occupying a small footprint.
Trang Dickson
Our stem cell core facility was looking for ways to speed up our human induced pluripotent cell cloning to generate clonal cell lines and to analyze our gene editing efficiencies in single cells. Our criteria for an instrument for single cell dispensing was 1) sterility, 2) gentle on cells, 3) ease of use, and 4) reasonable cost. The Namocell fitted our criteria perfectly. We are able to reduce the time and effort for generating clonal CRISPR-engineered iPSC lines significantly. The instrument requires very little maintenance and users do not need to be highly trained with the main requirement being good aseptic technique. We are excited to use the Namocell potentially for other single cell applications.
Po-Lin So
