Anyone who took a molecular biology course in their undergraduate program would attest to hearing about how bad inclusion bodies are for a cell system and the call for instantly having them washed away. They would be a symptom of systemic overload on the said E coli, that is programmed to overachieve and ends up with just clumps of inactive protein scatterred around – that no one can use. In fact, inclusion bodies can be a death knell for anyone trying to achieve high titers of recombinant protein.
As per this Nature Research Intelligence article – „Emerging studies have shown that optimisation of refolding processes is critical for maximising the recovery and bioactivity of proteins derived from inclusion bodies. Recent work has revealed that fine-tuning buffer compositions, pH, ionic strength, and the use of specific additives can substantially improve both yield and functional recovery during the refolding process . Furthermore, structural analyses have underscored that inclusion bodies can harbour native-like secondary structures, which may be preserved during mild solubilisation procedures, thus enabling more efficient conversion into active proteins. These developments are forging new avenues for integrating inclusion body processing within industrial biomanufacturing workflows.“
Numaferm as a new avenue:
Numaswitch technology was founded on the basis of this idea of harvesting inclusion bodies. Our unique platform lets a chaperone-mimic tag achieve optimal protein refolding of upto 100% – in systems where most others would not succeed. And where is this protein found? No prizes for guessing- in the very inclusion bodies that would otherwise have been rinsed off! Not only this, Numaferm uses water based solvents for downstream processing that help the environment and for any scientist trying to think of holistic planet friendly approach to protein purification.
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