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Three popular expression host systems Escherichia coli, Pichia pastoris and Drosophila S2 were analyzed techno-economically using HIV-1 Nef protein as the model product. On scale of 100 mg protein, the labor costs corresponded to 52-83% of the manufacturing costs. When analyzing the cost impact of the different phases (strain/cell line construction, bioreactor production, and primary purification), we found that with the microbial host systems the strain construction phase was most significant generating 56% (E. coli) and 72% (P. pastoris) of the manufacturing costs, whereas with the Drosophila S2 system the cell line construction and bioreactor production phases were equally significant (46 and 47% of the total costs, respectively). With different titers and production goal of 100 mg of Nef protein, the costs of P. pastoris and Drosophila S2 systems were about two and four times higher than the respective costs of the E. coli system. When equal titers and bioreactor working volumes (10 L) were assumed for all three systems, the manufacturing costs of the bioreactor production of the P. pastoris and Drosophila S2 systems were about two and 2.5 times higher than the respective costs of the E. coli system.

In the present paper we describe the cloning and extracellular expression of the HIV-1 Nef (negative factor) protein utilizing the yeast Pichia pastoris, as well as the successful use of a low-temperature fed-batch strategy for decreasing end-product degradation by proteases. The nef gene in a pPICZalphaA vector was integrated into the genome of three different P. pastoris strains, namely X-33, GS115 and KM71H. On the basis of its efficient growth and production characteristics the wild-type strain (X-33) was found to be the best choice. The decreased end-product degradation at low temperatures was not due to lower amounts of proteases but due to their diminished activity. The yield of biomass from methanol was improved 1.44-fold utilizing the low-temperature strategy compared with the standard fermentation. Purification of histidine-tagged Nef was performed in one step using a Ni(2+)-nitrilotriacetate-Sepharose column. The purified product was characterized by SDS/PAGE, Western blotting, matrix-assisted laser-desorption ionization-time-of-flight MS, reversed-phase HPLC and N-terminal-sequence analysis.