Comparative omics profiling reveals differences in biomass, energy production, and vesicle transport between CHO and fast-growing CHL-YN cells

TL;DR

CHL-YN cells grow faster than CHO cells and have unique traits in energy and biomass production that could improve biopharmaceutical manufacturing.

Contribution

The study identifies unique omics-based characteristics of CHL-YN cells compared to CHO cells and hamster lung tissue.

Findings

CHL-YN cells show enhanced biomass and energy production pathways like translation and amino acid biosynthesis.

CHL-YN cells have reduced activation of vesicle transport processes compared to CHO cells.

Findings suggest potential for improving antibody production and cell engineering in biopharma.

Abstract

Chinese hamster lung (CHL)-YN cells are promising novel hosts for producing therapeutic antibodies with the potential to shorten the research, development, and manufacturing timelines in biopharmaceutical production. CHL-YN cells grow twice as fast as Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells, with a doubling time of 8.1 h. These cells possess strong glutamine synthetase activity, allowing them to be cultured in glutamine-free media. In this study, we conducted comparative transcriptomics and proteomics among CHL-YN cells, CHO cells, and lung tissue from Chinese hamster to better understand the global characteristics of CHL-YN cells and determine whether these features are tissue-derived or unique to the cell line. Omics profiling revealed that CHL-YN cells, in contrast to CHO cells, exhibit highly activated processes and pathways related to biomass and energy production, such as translation and biosynthesis of amino acids, but less activated vesicle transport processes, such as Golgi-related vesicle transport. This study highlights distinct characteristics of CHL-YN cells, contributing to streamlined operations, shortened development timelines, and expanded options for selectable cell lines. The findings here could contribute to identifying potential biomarkers and targets for cell engineering toward improving antibody productivity and growth rate in both traditional CHO cells and next-generation host cells, CHL-YN.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1038/s41598-025-23503-z.

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