Takara Bio launches first commercial dissolvable microfluidic lentiviral transduction enhancer

San Jose, California—May 6, 2024—Takara Bio USA, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Takara Bio Inc., today announced the launch of the Lenti-X Transduction Sponge, a first-to-market dissolvable microfluidic transduction enhancer that innovates in vitro lentivirus-mediated gene delivery techniques. With an easy, walkaway workflow, the Lenti-X Transduction Sponge achieves high transduction efficiency in any cell type, enabling downstream research applications in the gene and cell therapy space. 

“The Lenti-X Transduction Sponge will transform the viral transduction landscape with its simple yet elegant design,” said Carol Lou, President & CEO of Takara Bio USA. “Existing techniques depend on time- and labor-intensive processes that may use chemical enhancers resulting in uncertain outcomes. This dependable, nontoxic method provides researchers with a completely new way to handle hard-to-transduce cells that will save time and lower costs.”

Takara Bio USA developed the transduction sponge in collaboration with Dr. Yevgeny Brudno, Associate Professor at the School of Pharmacy and the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of North Carolina and North Carolina State University. "We’re so pleased to see that the Lenti-X Transduction Sponge, based on a scaffold technology developed by my lab at NC State, will now be available to researchers all over the world," said Dr. Brudno. "It’s been gratifying to partner with Takara Bio to improve cellular genetic manipulation. We’re extremely excited by the potential impact of the transduction sponge on the production of important cell therapies."

Several limitations in current methods make lentiviral transductions cumbersome. For example, spinoculation—the use of a centrifuge to bring lentivirus and cells in closer proximity—and chemical enhancers are commonly used techniques to increase transduction efficiency. However, these methods are either time-intensive or work in a cell-type-specific manner, requiring optimization. Microfluidic systems, which improve cell-virus contact by spatially constraining cells and virus to small areas, have until now required special chips and hardware to facilitate the flow through microfluidic channels.

The Lenti-X Transduction Sponge safely replaces and solves the issues inherent to spinoculation, chemical enhancers, and microfluidic devices. Made from calcium-crosslinked alginate, a biomaterial with high biocompatibility, the sponge increases transduction efficiency by colocalizing target cells and virus within its macroporous 3D structure. After transduction, cells are gently released by dissolving the sponge with a supplied buffer, resulting in high cell viability and preservation of cellular phenotype. The easy-to-use workflow maximizes transduction efficiency across an array of cell targets, including human primary T cells, CD34+ hematopoietic stem cells, natural killer cells, cells in suspension, and adherent cell lines.

The Lenti-X Transduction Sponge will be revealed at the upcoming American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy (ASGCT) Annual Meeting from May 7–11, 2024. Attendees of the ASGCT meeting can visit Booth #2259 and our poster presentation (Abstract #440) to learn more about the Lenti-X Transduction Sponge workflow. The product will also be presented at the International Society for Cell & Gene Therapy (ISCT) Annual Meeting from May 29–June 1, 2024. At ISCT, attendees can engage with Takara Bio during the poster presentation (Abstract #1133) and view the Lenti-X Transduction Sponge at Booth #721. Researchers and other professionals wanting details can sign up to receive a special offer and technical information.