Recombinant Protein Expression Service in Insect Cells

With our highly customized protein expression service in insect cells we offer tailor-made solutions for your complex and difficult-to-express targets. As a leading protein service provider with many years of experience, we have established and optimized a virus-free transient production process to provide you with a high-quality recombinant protein expression service in insect cells on the fast track. Whether you’re in academia, biotech, or pharmaceuticals, our expertise ensures successful high-speed protein production for research, therapeutics, and diagnostics.

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Recombinant Protein Expression Service in Insect Cells

Highly Customized Service

The Insect Protein Expression System utilizes insect cells (such as Sf9 or Sf21) to produce recombinant proteins. It is particularly useful for proteins that require post-translational modifications, proper folding, or are challenging to express in bacterial systems. Compared to bacterial expression, insect cells offer a eukaryotic environment, enabling glycosylation, phosphorylation, and disulfide bond formation. This system is widely used for producing enzymes, membrane proteins, and vaccine candidates with high yield and functionality.

Our experienced protein experts offer a highly customized protein expression service in insect cells to provide the ideal and bespoke solution for your demanding target by delivering results at high speed. Transient transfection (baculovirus-free system) in insect cells is a rapid method of protein expression that significantly reduces the time from gene to protein by eliminating the time-consuming step of virus generation. This also allows highly parallel screening of different expression constructs and target variants in days rather than weeks.

trenzyme’s insect cell expression system is optimized for the expression of complex proteins that require post-translational modifications such as glycosylation or phosphorylation to ensure correct folding and functionality. By using the unique capabilities of our baculovirus-free insect cell expression systems, we provide a versatile, ultra-fast and efficient platform for producing proteins that meet the exact requirements of scientific research and pharmaceutical development.

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Recombinant Protein Expression Service in Insect Cells (Baculovirus-Free)

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Recombinant Protein Expression Service in Insect Cells (Baculovirus-Free)

Your Benefits

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Fast Delivery of Results

No need for time-consuming baculovirus generation - unique transient transfection process delivers results in days instead of weeks

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Success Maximization

Easy and highly parallel screening of multiple target variants and constructs to maximize success rate

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Tailored Upscaling

After initial small-scale testing (pilot study), we scale up expression to deliver the amount of protein you need.

Recombinant Protein Expression in Insect Cells_Ideal Service for difficult-to-express proteins

Ideal System for Difficult-To-Express Targets

Insect cells are particularly useful for expressing proteins that are difficult to produce in other systems, such as toxic, unstable proteins or membrane proteins like GPCRs.

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Easy Project Entry

All we need as starting material is your target protein sequence. The project starts with codon-optimized gene synthesis and subcloning into expression constructs from our large collection of proven expression backbones.

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Made for Complex Proteins

Our system is optimised for the expression of complex proteins that require post-translational modifications, such as glycosylation, to ensure they are correctly folded and functional.

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trenzyme's Protein Service includes the following points. Open Hand with vial.

Recombinant Protein Expression Service in Insect Cells

Service Includes

  • Comprehensive project advice from our highly skilled protein experts
  • Project support through our outstanding project management with regular status reports to ensure maximum success.
  • Detailed datasheet
  • Quality Control: standard quality control assays such as SDS-PAGE, purity and concentration determination. Additional analytics on request
  • Optional:Gene synthesis and High-Throughput Protein Expression Screening as starting point

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Recombinant Protein Expression Service in Insect Cells

Classical Baculovirus Expression vs. Baculovirus-Free Expression System

Baculovirus-Free vs. Baculovirus Based Expression Systems_Time Saving Baculovirus-Free Protein Expression in Insect Cells_trenzyme GmbH

Baculovirus-Free Protein Expression in Insect Cells

  • Rapid target expression (approx. one week). Plasmid-based systems are often faster, as no virus production and amplification is necessary.
  • The use of plasmids is often more cost-effective, as the production and maintenance of virus stocks can be dispensed with.
  • Production is more consistent as there are no mutations or variability due to viral amplification cycles.

Baculovirus-Free Protein Expression in Insect Cells

  • Large quantities of DNA are required for transfection
  • Depending on target, yield may be lower than with baculovirus-mediated expression

Baculovirus-Based Protein Expression in Insect Cells

  • More suitable for repeated large-scale protein production projects.
  • Baculovirus systems enable expression of of complex or large multisubunit proteins.

Baculovirus-Based Protein Expression in Insect Cells

  • The production of baculoviruses is very time-consuming due to multi-step virus creation and is therefore not really practical for one-off production.
  • Baculoviruses cannot be amplified indefinitely, they lose quality over time. Plasmids are always of the same quality, and mutations can be detected immediately by sequencing.
  • Lysis of host cells after infection with baculoviruses (possible negative influence on protein quality).

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Recombinant Protein Expression Service in Insect Cells

Application Note: trenzyme’s New Baculovirus-Free Expression System

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FAQs for Recombinant Protein Expression Service in Insect Cells

Is the yield with your new transient transfection method as good as with baculovirus-based expression?

In general, viral transduction is usually more efficient than transfection. However, the lengthy process of virus generation compared to the speed of transfection may compensate for this disadvantage by allowing you to react quickly and to use our HTS screening service to find the best combination of tag and folding helper for your specific target. HTS screening is very expensive and time-consuming for baculovirus-based expression systems, but fast and straightforward with our new transient transfection method.

Would it make sense to try to express my protein in insect cells if the target is likely to be toxic to mammalian cells?

Yes, definitely, because insects may have a different metabolism and different cell surface receptors, it is a good idea to try insect cells for expression. Insect cells provide post-translational modifications comparable to mammalian cells and could improve the yield of a mammalian toxic target protein.

Can you provide stable insect cell lines?

Yes, like mammalian cell lines, insect cell lines can be produced as stable cell lines expressing a specific target protein. The target protein can be secreted, so the cell line serves as a production cell line, or you can have stable assay cell lines that express e.g. a receptor on the cell surface to perform your favourite assay.

What do you need to start an protein expression in insect cells project?

We only need the amino acid sequence or the uniprot accession number of your target protein. Then we start with gene synthesis and cloning into our new vectors specifically designed for transient protein expression in insect cells.

Is it possible to test different target variants to optimize the yield of my target protein?

Yes, of course, as part of our high throughput protein expression services we can offer testing of different target variants, folding helpers and tag combinations to find the best construct for your target protein.

Why is an insect cell expression system the right choice for my protein target?

The insect expression system is particularly suitable for producing eukaryotic proteins that require post-translational modifications such as glycosylation, phosphorylation, or disulfide bond formation. Compared to bacterial systems, the insect cell expression system offers improved protein folding, higher solubility, and enhanced biological functionality. Another key advantage of an insect expression system is scalability: insect cells grow in suspension cultures, allowing cost-effective production of medium to large quantities. If your protein does not fold correctly or lacks functionality in bacterial systems, an insect cell expression system could be the ideal solution.

What are the disadvantages of a Baculovirus Insect Cell Expression System compared to a Baculovirus-Free expression system?

Compared to baculovirus-free systems, the baculovirus insect cell expression system has some disadvantages, including cell lysis, which can limit protein yield and complicate purification. The production process of a baculovirus insect cell expression system is also more time consuming due to the need for virus generation and infection steps. Furthermore, baculoviruses cannot be amplified forever, therefore either batch-to-batch variability in each amplification round as well as between virus batches may occur baculovirus insect cell expression systems. In contrast, baculovirus-free systems offer more stable and controllable protein expression. Most importantly, with our baculovirus-free system we are able to perform our HTS screening approaches also for screening in insect cells. The screening of many different target and expression plasmid variants in parallel would be very time consuming and expensive when using baculovirus insect cell expression systems.

How do I choose between an Insect Protein Expression System and other systems?

If your protein is toxic to mammalian cells, an insect protein expression system can be a good alternative, as insect cells may be less sensitive. This reduced sensitivity could be due to differences in analogous proteins between insects and mammals, such as receptors or metabolic proteins that an overexpressed target might otherwise affect.

Additionally, if your protein requires complex folding and modifications, such as post-translational modifications, insect cells offer a eukaryotic environment while being more cost-effective than mammalian systems. However, if your protein specifically requires human-like glycosylation or highly specialized modifications, mammalian cells might be the better choice. Ultimately, the decision should be based on the functional requirements of your target protein and the scale of production needed. Our experienced and highly qualified protein experts are available to support you in making the best decision for your specific protein expression needs.

Insect Cells vs Mammalian Cells - which system is right for my target?

The choice between insect cells vs mammalian cells depends on the complexity and specific requirements of your target protein. If your protein requires species-specific post-translational modifications, such as human-like glycosylation patterns, mammalian cells are the better option. While insect cells can also perform glycosylation, the glycan structures they produce differ from those in vertebrates. However, if your protein does not require human-specific modifications, insect cells may be a cost-effective and efficient alternative. Ultimately, the decision between insect cells vs mammalian cells should be based on factors like protein functionality, yield, and project goals. If feasible, conducting small-scale experiments in both systems can help determine which provides the best balance of quality and efficiency for your specific application.

How long does it take to produce proteins using an Insect Protein Expression system?

Protein expression in insect cells typically takes a few days to weeks, depending on the expression system used. Our baculovirus-free expression systems strongly speed up this process by eliminating the need for virus generation, which usually alone already takes several weeks.

Why choose trenzyme for insect cell recombinant protein production?

trenzyme offers expertise in insect cell recombinant protein production, ensuring high yields and proper folding of complex proteins. With a baculovirus-free expression system, trenzyme minimizes the time and costs associated with virus generation, making the process faster and more efficient. Additionally, using a baculovirus-free system, this enabled us to integrate insect cell recombinant protein expression in our HTS packages with which we can screen for the optimal target variant and plasmid construction.

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What Our Clients Say About Us

We appreciated trenzyme’s very open communication throughout the project and the detailed documentation provided. We are really happy with the outcome and would absolutely come to trenzyme again in the future for any custom proteins. Thank you to the whole team for their skills and effort in a good result, it is very exciting for us to be able to work with this material!

Prof. Dr. Shana J. Sturla ETH-Zurich, Department of Health Sciences and Technology, Zurich, Switzerland
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reinhold-horlacher-managing-director-trenzyme

Reinhold Horlacher, PhD

Managing Director & CSO

We would be happy to provide you with support on your protein research project. Let us know your questions and requests, our scientific experts will reply shortly.

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