NEWARK, Calif.– ATUM, a pioneer in bioengineering solutions, today announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued patent numbers 11,060,098, 11,060,109, and 11,060,086 which expand the scope of the Leap-In Transposase® platform, the company’s innovative transposon-based tool for genome engineering. The newly issued patents cover three novel transposase/transposon pairs which add to ATUM’s existing two patents within the Leap-In Transposase toolbox.
The engineering of mammalian genomes is critical for the efficient development of cell lines that produce antibodies and related protein-based pharmaceuticals. Increasingly, applications of genome engineering include CAR-T and other cell-based therapies, adeno-associated virus (AAV) and Lentivirus-based packaging cell lines, and gene therapy applications, among others. Despite the abundance of high-value applications, the tools for engineering genomes to the required specifications are limited. Unlike sequence-specific nucleases such as CRISPR/Cas9 –which are TALENs or Zinc fingers that excel at gene knock-outs– transposons catalyze the semi-random knock-in of any size genetic element into open chromosomal DNA. Efficient multicopy integration of stable non-silenced genetic inserts allows for establishing previously unattainable genome engineering processes, such as multicopy or multi-open reading frame (ORF) inserts for bi- or tri-specific antibodies.
“The emergence of CRISPR/Cas9 opened the door to engineering genomes. But, just like a hammer does not make a tool chest, CRISPR/Cas9 cannot be used on its own for many of the important genome engineering applications. ATUM’s transposon-, and transposase-based platform addresses some of these limitations and has direct applications for efficient recombinant protein expression, cell line development, cell/gene therapy, and other genomic engineering applications,” said Oren Beske, PhD, ATUM’s Amalgamator of Science and Business. “With the addition of these three orthogonal enzymes, we are in a unique position to apply our bioengineering tools to a spectrum of complex multidimensional bioengineering applications on the genome level. We have seen strong interest from the global biotech and pharma industries in our first two transposase enzymes and our rapidly growing genome engineering toolbox complements what we have established in gene and protein design.”
“These key Leap-In patents are an important milestone and validation of the novel genome engineering platform we are building,” said Jeremy Minshull, PhD, CEO of ATUM. “We remain committed to expanding our recombinant protein and antibody expression suite of tools for both transient and stable mammalian protein production. Our unique and growing Leap-In transposase patent estate, in combination with our operational focus – powered by our state-of-the-art protein and antibody production laboratory – are enabling a new wave of efficient industrial-scale biomanufacturing.”
The new transposases have been engineered by ATUM using its proprietary ProteinGPS® platform which enables the rapid generation of stable transposon integrations as well as the controlled excision of genetic elements. The three new patented transposases originate from rice fish, snout moth and owlet moth. ATUM previously developed and patented two orthogonal transposases as part of its Leap-In platform. ATUM’s intellectual property estate currently includes 31 issued US Patents covering bioengineering of genes, proteins, genomes and more.
