Culture medium for insect cells

Abstract

The present invention is directed to a culture medium for insect cells, particularly for culturing insect cells for the expression of proteins using a baculovirus expression system, characterized in that the medium does not contain glutamine.

1 . An insect cell culture medium characterised in that the medium does not contain glutamine.  
     
     
         2 . An insect cell culture medium according to    claim 1    which also does not contain glutamate.  
     
     
         3 . An insect cell culture medium according to    claim 1    or    2    which does not contain aspartate.  
     
     
         4 . An insect cell culture medium according to any preceding claim which contains an ammonium ion source.  
     
     
         5 . A method of culturing insect cells comprising growing the cells in a medium according to any preceding claim.  
     
     
         6 . A method of obtaining a polypeptide including transforming insect cells with recombinant baculovirus including a gene coding for said polypeptide, and growing the transformed cells in a culture medium that does not contain glutamine but which does contain an ammonium ion source.  
     
     
         7 . A method according to    claim 5    or    claim 6    wherein the cells are from  Spodoptera frugiperda.    
     
     
         8 . A method according to    claim 7    wherein the cells are from the cell lines Sf-9 or Sf-21.