High yield antibody production in a disposable WAVE Bioreactor

Transcription

1 High yield antibody production in a Process intensification using perfusion culture Christian Kaisermayer 1, Jianjun Yang 2 1 GE Healthcare Europe GmbH, Vienna, Austria (Christian.Kaisermayer@ge.com), 2 GE China Research and Development Center Co. Ltd. Shanghai First published in May 2011 at the 22 nd ESACT meeting in Vienna, Austria

2 Introduction Perfusion processes provide high volumetric productivity by retaining a large cell number in a relatively small volume. These characteristics can be used for process intensification to obtain the same amount of product from a considerably smaller bioreactor compared to a standard batch or fedbatch process. 2 /High yield antibody production in a

3 Introduction Drosophila Schneider 2 (S2) insect cells producing a recombinant antibody were cultivated in disposable WAVE Bioreactor. Cell growth and protein production in a perfusion and a batch process were compared. Additionally the implication of both cultivation modes on the cost of consumables in the upstream process was evaluated. 3 /High yield antibody production in a

4 Cell cultivation and reactor setups S2 cells were transfected to produce a monoclonal antibody against hemagglutinin of influenza H5N1. The cells were grown in commercial serum free medium. Inoculum was prepared in shake flasks. Cultivation was done in at working volumes of 0.85 L. Oxygen was supplied by adjusting agitation and increasing O 2 concentration in the headspace. In perfusion, cell retention was achieved by a filter integrated into the bioreactor. The perfusion rate was controlled via an integrated loadcell that allowed periodic addition and removal of equal amounts of feed and harvest. 4 /High yield antibody production in a

5 Fig. 1: Cell concentration and viability. Batch culture in red, perfusion culture in blue. Circles: cell concentration, triangles: viability. Bold line indicates perfusion rate. 5 /High yield antibody production in a

6 Perfusion had a drastic effect on cell concentration and viability. As shown in Fig. 1, a tenfold higher cell concentration than in the batch culture was reached. Additionally a viability higher than 95% was maintained throughout the process. In combination this led to a 10 times larger viable cell integral for the perfusion culture. 6 /High yield antibody production in a

7 Fig. 2: Cell specific productivity (bars), specific perfusion rate (line) and IgG concentration (dots) during perfusion culture 7 /High yield antibody production in a

8 Utilization of cell culture medium was optimized by adjusting the perfusion rate to ensure maximum product concentration but at the same time avoid nutrient limitation of the cells. The sudden decrease of the cell specific productivity on day 19 (Fig. 2) probably is the result of such a limit. A residual glucose concentration of about 3 g/l had to be maintained to avoid depletion of other nutrients. With the increased perfusion rate on day 20 and 21 cells recovered, reaching at least the same specific productivity as during the initial phase of the recombinant protein production. 8 /High yield antibody production in a

9 Fig. 3: IgG concentration (circles) and volumetric productivity (bar graph). Protein production was induced on day 10. Batch culture in red, closed symbols, perfusion culture in blue, open symbols 9 /High yield antibody production in a

10 Volumetric productivity (STY) was considerably higher in perfusion culture as shown in Fig. 3. One of the reasons was the higher viable cell concentration, additionally also the cell specific productivity was improved more than twofold compared to the batch culture (Fig. 4). The high and stable productivity in perfusion culture can most likely be attributed to the consistent metabolite concentrations. As shown in Fig. 3 there were 6 days during the perfusion culture where a protein output of more than 1 g per liter working volume was achieved. 10 /High yield antibody production in a

11 Fig. 4: Comparison of cell concentration, productivity and consumable cost in both culture modes 11 /High yield antibody production in a

12 Conclusions Perfusion allowed a 20-fold increase of the volumetric productivity compared to batch culture The upstream consumable cost per 100 mg IgG decreased by 85% A viable cell concentration of about 1*10 8 c/ml was maintained for one week Use of a disposable bioreactor allows short turnover times, improving equipment utilization Despite the high cell concentration, no DO limits or clogging of the retention filter were observed during 3 weeks process time 12 /High yield antibody production in a

13 Acknowledgments The S 2 cell line used in this study, was generously provided by Lulan Wang and Paul Zhou, Institut Pasteur, Shanghai 2011 General Electric Company - All rights reserved. GE, imagination at work, and GE monogram are trademarks of General Electric Company. WAVE Bioreactor is a trademark of GE Healthcare companies. All goods and services are sold subjects to the terms and conditions of sale of the company within GE Healthcare which supplies them. A copy of these terms and conditions is available on request. Contact your local GE Healthcare representative for the most current information. First published May /High yield antibody production in a