Photo by Daniel Sone
SAN DIEGO—Researchers say they have discovered a way to make the anticoagulant heparin using human cells.
The team found they could produce heparin from human embryonic kidney cells transfected with the serglycin gene.
They believe this new method could offer a safer alternative to current heparin production methods, which rely on animal byproducts that are largely sourced in China.
However, the researchers noted that their recombinant human heparin was substantially less potent than porcine heparin. So more work must be done to increase the anticoagulant activity of the human heparin.
John Whitelock, PhD, of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and his colleagues generated the recombinant human heparin and described their work in a poster presented at Experimental Biology 2016.
“What we’ve done is looked at the way our cells naturally make heparin in our bodies, taken that gene, and expressed it in cells in the laboratory,” Dr Whitelock explained. “The result is a natural product that is not synthetic, which makes it safer than the animal-sourced material.”
Specifically, the researchers increased the expression of serglycin in human embryonic kidney (HEK-293) cells and were able to produce heparin.
The team compared the anticoagulant activity of this heparin and unfractionated porcine mucosal heparin, and they found the porcine heparin was approximately 20 times more potent than the human heparin, on a weight basis.
However, the recombinant human heparin was able to significantly delay fibrin clot formation in plasma when compared to no heparin.
“Frankly, we were surprised that there was any anticoagulant effect at all,” Dr Whitelock said. “People in this field have been working with serglycin for upwards of 20 years, and, usually, you get a sort of heparin ‘cousin’ but not real heparin. It’s been a great source of frustration, and our study is an important step toward an alternative source of heparin that could have distinct advantages for patient safety.”
The team’s next steps are to refine the engineered cells to increase the amount and potency of the heparin they produce.
Dr Whitelock estimates heparin produced with the new method could hit the market within 10 to 15 years, although he cautioned that the drug will likely be more expensive than traditional animal-derived heparin because of the economies of scale that are already built into the existing supply chain.
However, human-cell-derived heparin could potentially be safer, less prone to contamination and adverse reactions, and a better option for patients who cannot use animal-derived heparin due to religious or dietary restrictions.
