Plasmid DNA Production for Therapeutic Applications

Abstract

Plasmid DNA (pDNA) is the base for promising DNA vaccines and gene therapies against many infectious, acquired, and genetic diseases, including HIV-AIDS, Ebola, Malaria, and different types of cancer, enteric pathogens, and influenza. Compared to conventional vaccines, DNA vaccines have many advantages such as high stability, not being infectious, focusing the immune response to only those antigens desired for immunization and long-term persistence of the vaccine protection. Especially in developing countries, where conventional effective vaccines are often unavailable or too expensive, there is a need for both new and improved vaccines. Therefore the demand of pDNA is expected to rise significantly in the near future. Since the injection of pDNA usually only leads to a weak immune response, several milligrams of DNA vaccine are necessary for immunization protection. Hence, there is a special interest to raise the product yield in order to reduce manufacturing costs. In this chapter, the different stages of plasmid DNA production are reviewed, from the vector design to downstream operation options. In particular, recent advances on cell engineering for improving plasmid DNA production are discussed.

The online version of the original chapter can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-61779-433-9_14

The publisher regrets that in the print and online versions of this title, the following author name and affiliation for this chapter were not included:

Martin Wunderlich

Institute of Food Technology and Bioprocess Engineering, Dresden University of Technology, Bergstrasse 120, 01069 Dresden, Germany