Abstract
Cell-free protein synthesis has emerged as a powerful technology platform to help satisfy the growing demand for simple and efficient protein production. While used for decades as a foundational research tool for understanding transcription and translation, recent advances have made possible cost-effective microscale to manufacturing scale synthesis of complex proteins. Protein yields exceed grams protein produced per liter reaction volume, batch reactions last for multiple hours, costs have been reduced orders of magnitude, and reaction scale has reached the 100-liter milestone. These advances have inspired new applications in the synthesis of protein libraries for functional genomics and structural biology, the production of personalized medicines, and the expression of virus-like particles, among others. In the coming years, cell-free protein synthesis promises new industrial processes where short protein production timelines are crucial as well as innovative approaches to a wide range of applications.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1185-1194 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | Biotechnology Advances |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Sep 1 2012 |
Funding
The authors gratefully acknowledge funding from the National Institutes of Health (Grant Number R00GM081450 ), the National Academies Keck Futures Initiative (Grant Number NAFKI-SB5 ), the National Science Foundation (Grant Number MCB-0943393 ), the Office of Naval Research (Grant Number N00014-11-1-0363 ), the DARPA YFA Program (Grant Number N66001-11-1-4137 ), and the ARMY Research Office (Grant Number W911NF-11-1-044 ).
Keywords
- Cell-free biology
- Cell-free protein synthesis
- E. coli extract
- High-throughput
- In vitro translation
- Personalized medicines
- Recombinant DNA protein production
- Synthetic biology
- Wheat germ extract
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Biotechnology