Current strategies for the development of high-yield HEK293 cell lines

At present, approximately 80% of the currently approved recombinant therapeutic proteins are produced by Chinese hamster ovary cells. However, considering that the human embryonic kidney (HEK) 293 cell line comes from human sources and has the advantages of high transfection rate, fast growth rate, good post-translational modifications, and growth rate in serum-free suspension culture, the HEK293 cell line could produce high-quality and highly biologically active recombinant therapeutic proteins. Till now, several biotherapeutic proteins are selected to be produced by HEK293 cell lines. In establishing HEK293 cell lines with high-yield performance, they must be transformed and optimized by molecular biology and high-throughput analysis. Therefore, this paper primarily introduces the currently industrialized HEK293 cell line, HEK293 cell line expression system, and genetic engineering modification methods and proposes specific transformation strategies to provide insights into the future transformation of new HEK293 cell lines and new strategies for the efficient expression of recombinant proteins by HEK293 cells in industry.