InVivo Biotech

InVivo is your partner for custom monoclonal antibody production from hybridoma cell lines. More than 3,500 different hybridoma clones producing human, rat, or mouse antibodies have been processed in our lab during the last 20 years. Your challenging clone is in good hands with us supported by special equipment and many years of know-how.

Our facilities allow the production of up to 1 kg monoclonal antibodies for use in research, human in-vitro diagnostic, preclinical development, veterinary diagnostics, food and feed safety. Proprietary serum-free media and optimized processes like high cell density fermentation guarantee a production at highest cost-effectiveness.

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At InVivo, your recombinant antibody production is in reliable hands. Recombinant antibodies for target screening, antigen production or drug discovery can be produced either by transient expression or from your own stable cell line in small to large scales. Transient expression is performed using our in house system InVEST. InVEST guarantees an approximately 80 fold increase in yield compared to commercially available systems, at reduced costs. Within the last 20 years, our experts have acquired significant expertise by producing all kinds of antibodies from humans, rat or mouse.

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The E. coli expression system for production of recombinant proteins offers several advantages: A shorter timeline for the entire process from cloning to protein recovery, inexpensive production processes, high protein yields and high flexibility in scale. Smaller peptides and proteins without posttranslational modifications, like antigens, bacterial proteins, hormones, pro-hormones, tumour markers or cytokines, are readily expressed in bacterial cells.

Special services

• Small-scale pilot production as feasibility test
• Cultivation in 0.8 L up to 50 L or high cell density cultivation in 10 L

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Get mammalian derived proteins within weeks! Our proprietary optimized expression system for transient gene expression InVEST facilitates fast production of recombinant proteins, bypassing the time-consuming and costly generation of stable cell lines. InVEST guarantees an approximately 80‑fold increase in yield compared to commercially available systems. Complex native proteins with post-translational modifications like antigens, recombinant antibodies, antibody fragments, proteases, tumour markers or proteohormones can be expressed.

Special services

• Transfection in HEK or CHO cell lines
• Small-scale pilot production as feasibility test
• Up to 100 parallel small-scale productions for target discovery

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Your cell line is in good hands with us – even a challenging one! We have the appropriate equipment and know-how to handle tricky cases. We have successfully expressed and purified various types of recombinant mammalian proteins from our client’s stable cell lines such as antigens, enzymes, recombinant antibodies and biomarkers.

Special services

• Small-scale pilot production as feasibility test
• High cell density cultivation up to 100 L
• Long-term cultivation

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In many cases, sufficient material can be obtained through production from stable CHO cell pools instead of going all the way to produce a stable cell line. This approach is beneficial especially for time-sensitive projects, as recombinant antibodies and proteins become available within just a few weeks’ time. During stable transfection, the DNA of interest is integrated into the genome of the host cell to allow steady production of the target protein. However, the location and number of DNA insertions vary from cell to cell. This creates a pool of cells which all express the same protein or antibody, but with varying degrees of expression efficiency. When developing a stable cell line, the resulting cell pool then serves as starting point for single cell cloning and various screening processes, in which the clone with the highest productivity is identified and selected as basis for the stable cell line. By skipping the lengthy screening procedures and continuing with production directly from the cell pool, it is possible to reduce the costs and timeline of your project without compromising on the quality of the product.

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Hybridoma technology is a standard method for antibody development. By fusion of antibody-producing B-cells with myeloma cells, an immortalized hybrid cell line is generated that produces large quantities of one specific monoclonal antibody directed against your antigen of interest.

InVivo offers custom services for mouse hybridoma development. Depending on your specific needs, we provide flexible and customized solutions to develop high-affinity antibodies against your antigen of interest. The entire process, including immunization, cell fusion, screening, cloning and initial characterization usually takes around 4-5 months.

This service includes:

• Development of murine monoclonal antibodies against haptens, peptides and protein
• For research and IVD kit manufacturing

Extras:

• Screening of antibody pairs for sandwich-ELISA
• Negative-screening to avoid cross-reactions of antibodies
• Isotyping
• Mycoplasma testing
• Cryopreservation of clones
• Small-scale test production of monoclonal antibodies from hybridoma

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Labelled proteins are an essential tool in both, biological research and in vitro diagnostics. In particular, biotinylated antibodies are often used in immunological assays, for the detection and quantification of antigens and biomarkers. 

Therefore, InVivo provides high-quality solutions for the chemical modification of antibodies and proteins:

• Biotinylation
• HRP- or AP-coupling
• Bioconjugation with fluorophores

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Lyophilization is a common method for the gentle dehydration of biological products, like antibodies and enzymes. By sublimation under vacuum, water is removed from the product without altering its molecular structure or reducing quality. Freeze-dried products feature a higher stability and an extended shelf life. They can easily be stored over longer periods of time, shipped without cooling chain challenges and reconstituted at any time if needed.

InVivo can provide lyophilization services for proteins and antibodies that are regularly produced in reasonable quantities (minimal amount: 100 mg). For this purpose, we offer a variety of different vials to choose from; the total maximum loading volume being 2L. 

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Your production clones are safe with us

At InVivo, your cell culture clones are always handled with special care. After an initial test for mycoplasma contamination, samples are cryopreserved for storage in liquid nitrogen. This way the clones are always available for further protein production. In general, we use our serum-free ISF-1 medium for this purpose, but customization is possible upon customer request.

To avoid the loss of cell lines, we highly recommend to store important clones at two additional locations outside of InVivo.

If required, we can cultivate and prepare cell lines for safe or patent deposit at long-term storage facilities, such as the DSMZ – Braunschweig.

This service includes:

• Cultivation of cell lines in original medium in T-flasks
• Cryopreservation of 12 cryovials with 5 x 106cells per vial
• Mycoplasma testing
• Preparation documentation
• Revitalization test for quality control

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To reach ideal production rates in eukaryotic or prokaryotic expression systems, it is highly recommended to optimize DNA sequences depending on the specific project requirements. In this regard, InVivo offers a range of different DNA design services, such as codon optimization, insertion of restriction sites for subsequent cloning into InVivo´s proprietary expression vectors, addition of signal peptides for efficient protein secretion and the addition of tags for subsequent protein purification.

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Transient gene expression in mammalian cells requires large amounts of high-quality plasmid DNA. As commercially available kits exclusively use single-use columns and have a limited capacity of only 10 mg, InVivo established a proprietary procedure for large-scale DNA preparation. Here, reusable ion exchange columns are used which easily allow the cost-efficient preparation of up to 100 mg plasmid DNA* with a standard size ranging from 1500 bp to 9000 bp. This transfection grade DNA is animal component-free with a very low level of endotoxins.

*For individual projects, we can also offer larger DNA yields, if required.

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Optimize your antibody

If you have a hybridoma cell line but your antibody yield is low, or if your antibody is specific but needs to be humanized, then InVivo can help you overcome these obstacles. By sequencing the cDNA of the variable domains from heavy and light chain, you will be able to optimize the antibody according to your needs. From RNA extraction to sequencing, from codon optimization to high yield antibody production and purification – get it all from one source!

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