Engineering of the Cellular Translational Machinery and Non-Coding RNAs to Enhance CHO Cell Growth, Recombinant Product Yields and Quality

Chinese hamster ovary cells are the main mammalian cell expression system currently used for the production of recombinant protein biopharmaceuticals. One of the key processes determining the achievable biomass of cells in the bioreactor and the yield and quality of recombinant protein from such systems is mRNA translation. Translation is the process by which ribosomes and associated cellular machinery decode an mRNA to produce a polypeptide. In recent years the roles of different classes of non-coding RNAs in controlling global and transcript specific mRNA translation has also come to light. Here we review approaches to engineer the translational machinery and non-coding RNAs, particularly long non-coding RNAs and tRNAs in CHO cells and then outline the challenges and potential of such approaches to revolutionize the yields and quality of recombinant protein from CHO and other mammalian cell expression systems.