Bioengineered Heparan Sulfate

Heparan sulfate (HS) is found on the surface of all human cells and is a major component of the extracellular matrix. Hundreds of proteins bind to HS, which drives a wide variety of processes in human development and pathophysiology across all organ systems. A major limitation to experimental research on HS is the lack of high quality material that is structurally and functionally characterized.  

To date, commercial vendors have provided small quantities of HS for research, usually derived from kidney or as a byproduct of heparin production from porcine intestinal mucosa. HS derived from animal tissue suffers from batch-to-batch variation, carries a risk of contamination and fails to reproduce the variety of compositions found in nature. 

TEGA recombinant heparan sulfate (rHS) is produced using engineered cell lines in a controlled process that results in a high quality product that is not susceptible to the issues of animal sources and potential contamination.  Batch-to-batch consistency and quality is confirmed by testing rHS composition and performance.  

Cell line engineering enables production of variation in HS characteristics including disaccharide composition, degree of sulfation and protein binding. TEGA’s rHS library variants demonstrate different and varied biochemical, cellular and physiological responses.