Mammalian cell display services
When your target demands native glycosylation, disulfide bonding, or complex multi-subunit assembly, mammalian display provides the right biological context for screening
Discuss your project →Screening in a native human cellular context
Mammalian display screens protein libraries on HEK293 cells, providing human-pattern N-glycosylation, native disulfide architectures, and proper membrane embedding. Hits selected in this context carry post-translational modifications that directly reflect the final production format.
Library delivery uses lentiviral transduction or Cas9-mediated integration to ensure single-copy payload per cell. This one-cell-one-variant linkage enables quantitative FACS-based selection without avidity artifacts from multi-copy expression. Full-length IgG antibodies, multi-pass transmembrane proteins, and targets with glycan-dependent epitopes all benefit from mammalian display.
Targets that require mammalian cell display
Glycan-dependent epitopes
Targets where the binding epitope includes or is conformationally dependent on N-linked glycans. Yeast hyperglycosylation produces mannose-rich structures that differ from human glycoforms, potentially masking or altering critical epitopes.
Full-length IgG screening
Display of complete IgG1 or IgG4 antibody formats that require proper heavy-light chain pairing, glycosylation of the Fc domain, and native disulfide bond formation. Avoids reformatting artifacts seen when converting scFv hits to full-length.
Multi-pass transmembrane targets
GPCRs, ion channels, and other multi-pass membrane proteins that must be presented in a native lipid bilayer context. Mammalian cells provide the correct membrane composition and chaperone machinery for proper folding and surface trafficking.
Developability-focused campaigns
When downstream manufacturing will use CHO or HEK production, screening in the same cellular context reduces the gap between discovery and development. Hits selected in mammalian display are more likely to express well in production cell lines.
Single-copy integration for quantitative screening
Low-MOI viral integration
Lentiviral delivery at low multiplicity of infection ensures single-copy integration per cell. Stable genomic insertion provides consistent expression across cell divisions, enabling multi-round selection without library loss.
- • Stable integration across passages
- • Established protocol for large libraries
- • Compatible with extended selection campaigns
Site-specific genomic insertion
CRISPR/Cas9-directed integration at a defined safe harbor locus. Every cell expresses its payload from the same genomic context, eliminating position-effect variation and enabling direct comparison of expression levels across variants.
- • Uniform expression from defined locus
- • No position-effect variability
- • Quantitative expression-level comparisons
Mammalian display screening workflow
Library construction
Gene synthesis of your diversified library, cloned into mammalian expression vectors with surface display tags. Quality-controlled by NGS before transfection.
Transfection and display
Electroporation or lipofection into CHO or HEK293 cells. Surface expression confirmed by flow cytometry before selection begins.
FACS selection
Multi-round fluorescence-activated sorting against labeled antigen. Increasing stringency each round. Counter-selection against off-targets as needed.
NGS and hit calling
Enriched populations sequenced and analyzed. Quantitative enrichment ratios identify top candidates. Ranked hit lists delivered with enrichment metrics.
Need mammalian-context screening?
Describe your target and the post-translational requirements. We will recommend the optimal display platform and return a detailed proposal.
Start a project →