Disclosed is a wet granulated cell culture medium and a preparation method therefor and, more specifically, to a wet granulated cell culture medium which supports the growth of mammalian cells and/or insect cells and/or plant cells and bacteria, and a preparation method therefor.

The present invention provides a self-draining well plate cassette and an automated system for cultivating C. elegans comprising a housing, a well plate assembly having at least two of the self-draining well plate cassettes, a liquid dispensing assembly operated by a first three axes positioner, a wash and imaging assembly operated by a second three axis positioner, a reagent assembly, a pipette tip holder, and a controller. The present invention further provides a method of using the above-described system to cultivate C. elegans.

The present invention is a method for controlling a regeneration speed of an animal cell that includes a step of grasping tide-generating force and a step of giving a physical stimulus or chemical stimulus to the animal cell according to the variation in the tide-generating force.

Methods and compositions relating to the engineering of an improved protein with methionine--lyase enzyme activity are described. For example, in certain aspects there may be disclosed a modified cystathionine--lyase (CGL) comprising one or more amino acid substitutions and capable of degrading methionine. Furthermore, certain aspects of the invention provide compositions and methods for the treatment of cancer with methionine depletion using the disclosed proteins or nucleic acids.

The present invention relates to the use of increased culture pH, relative to standard insect cell culture conditions, during baculovirus infection of lepidopteran insect cells to enable production of recombinant chikungunya (CHIKV) virus like particles (VLPs). The invention further relates to adapted insect cell lines derived from insect cells such as Sf21, which can grow robustly at elevated culture pH, the use of said cell lines to recombinantly produce pH sensitive proteins in the correct conformation and increase expression of recombinant proteins relative to standard insect cell lines. In some embodiments of the invention, the cells are useful for recombinant production of CHIKV VLPs. The invention also relates to a method for the production of a pH-adapted lepidopteran insect cell line. In some embodiments of said method, the cell line is produced and/or maintained in reduced phosphate serum-free insect cell media.

The present invention relates to a novel enhancer of protein production in host cells. It discloses a vector for expressing recombinant proteins in these cells, comprising a nucleotide sequence encoding a) a secretion peptidic signal, b) a 6-methylguanine-DNA-methyltransferase enzyme (MGMT, EC 2.1.1.63), a mutant or a catalytic domain thereof, and c) a recombinant protein. Said MGMT enzyme is preferably the so-called SNAP protein.

A cell culture medium that sustains the growth of cells obtained from a crustacean in vitro. Indeed, the disclosure describes a cell culture medium comprising a specific salt composition, in part responsible for the correct osmolality and pH, a specific amino acid and vitamin composition, energy sources such as glucose, and crustacean hemolymph. This disclosure further shows that the cell culture medium is capable of keeping cells obtained from shrimp and lobster viable for long periods of time even after passaging the cells into subcultures and inducing the cells to proliferate. The cultured cells are, for example, useful for performing physiological studies on certain genes (by genetic engineering) and for doing research and diagnosis on crustacean pathogens.

The present invention provides processes for producing and characterizing adenoassociated virus particles and baculovirus particles. The present invention is directed to methods of improving adeno associated virus (AAV) production. The present invention addresses the problems associated with the production of rAAV using baculovirus infected Sf9 cells and achieves an improved method for producing rAAV. The present invention developed different methods for producing recombinant baculovirus (rBV) and recombinant adeno-associated virus (rAA V). These methods address issues such as genome instability and also result in improved production of rAA V, as well as produce rAA V with improved properties.

Methods and compositions relating to the engineering of an improved protein with methionine--lyase enzyme activity are described. For example, in certain aspects there may be disclosed a modified cystathionine--lyase (CGL) comprising one or more amino acid substitutions and capable of degrading methionine. Furthermore, certain aspects of the invention provide compositions and methods for the treatment of cancer with methionine depletion using the disclosed proteins or nucleic acids.

The present invention relates to a novel enhancer of protein production in host cells. It discloses a vector for expressing recombinant proteins in these cells, comprising a nucleotide sequence encoding a) a secretion peptidic signal, b) a 6-methylguanine-DNA-methyltransferase enzyme (MGMT, EC 2.1.1.63), a mutant or a catalytic domain thereof, and c) a recombinant protein. Said MGMT enzyme is preferably the so-called SNAP protein.