Low-glutamine fed-batch cultures of 293-HEK serum-free suspension cells for adenovirus production.

Recent developments in gene therapy using adenoviral (Ad) vectors have fueled renewed interest in the 293 human embryonic kidney cell line traditionally used to produce these vectors. Low-glutamine fed-batch cultures of serum-free, suspension cells in a 5-L bioreactor were conducted. Our aim was to tighten the control on glutamine metabolism and hence reduce ammonia and lactate accumulation. Online direct measurement of glutamine was effected via a continuous cell-exclusion system that allows for aseptic, cell-free sampling of the culture broth. A feedback control algorithm was used to maintain the glutamine concentration at a level as low as 0.1 mM with a concentrated glucose-free feed medium. This was tested in two media: a commercial formulation (SFM II) and a chemically defined DMEM/F12 formulation. The fed-batch and batch cultures were started at the same glucose concentration, and it was not controlled at any point in the fed-batch cultures. In all cases, fed-batch cultures with double the cell density and extended viable culture time compared to the batch cultures were achieved. An infection study on the high density fed-batch culture using adenovirus-green fluorescent protein (Ad-GFP) construct was also done to ascertain the production capacity of the culture. Virus titers from the infected fed-batch culture showed that there is an approximately 10-fold improvement over a batch infection culture. The results have shown that the control of glutamine at low levels in cultures is sufficient to yield significant improvements in both cell densities and viral production. The applicability of this fed-batch system to cultures in different media and also infected cultures suggests its potential for application to generic mammalian cell cultures.

Enhanced IFNgamma production in adenosine-treated CHO cells: a mechanistic study.

Adenosine causes growth arrest in recombinant mammalian cell cultures, which results in enhanced productivity of the recombinant protein. Adenosine is also known to increase intracellular ATP level when added to mammalian cells. As a cell's energy level affects its protein expression capacity, we investigated the factors that contribute to the increase in recombinant protein productivity. Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells expressing human interferon-gamma (IFNgamma) were treated with 1 mM adenosine on Day 2 of culture. The growth arrest resulted in 60% reduction in integral viable cell density when compared with control. However, IFNgamma titer improved 1.4-fold alongside a 2.5-fold increase in average specific productivity. The adenosine-treated cells also experienced a two-fold increase in ATP level that sustained for 3 days. Western blot studies revealed a relatively short-lived but strong activation of the energy sensor AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) in adenosine-treated cells. Activation of AMPK was probably due to adenosine being temporarily converted to AMP. Activated AMPK should have down-regulated protein translation by preventing mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) from phosphorylating and inactivating 4E-binding protein 1 (4E-BP1), a key repressor of protein translation initiation. However, Western blots showed increased phosphorylation of 4E-BP1 on Day 2 that lasted 3 days. This implied that a high concentration of ATP could keep 4E-BP1 inhibited, probably by directly modulating mTOR. This corroborated with an earlier in vitro observation (Dennis et al., Science. 2001;294:1102-1105). Inhibition of translation initiation repression is thus likely to contribute in part to the improvement in IFNgamma-specific productivity and titer.

Overexpression of heat shock proteins (HSPs) in CHO cells for extended culture viability and improved recombinant protein production.

It has been widely reported that CHO cells undergo apoptosis in culture, despite supplementation of nutrients through fed-batch strategies. Improvement of cell viability in culture can effectively improve recombinant protein yield through extension of the culture's production lifespan, especially at high cell densities. Heat shock proteins (HSPs) have been reported to demonstrate anti-apoptotic effects against a wide range of physical and chemical stimuli through their ability to bind and act as antagonists to critical apoptotic molecules. CHO-IFN-gamma cells, expressing recombinant human interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma), were engineered to overexpress two HSPs (HSP27 and HSP70) either individually or in combination. In fed-batch bioreactor cultures, the engineered cell lines exhibited a more gradual viability loss and extension of culture times of 36-72h, with corresponding delays in escalation of caspases 2, 3, 8 and 9 activities, compared to the control cultures utilizing cells transfected with the vector backbone. The extension in culture times translated to a 2.5-fold improvement in IFN-gamma production over controls in fed-batch cultures. These results suggest that overexpression of HSPs represents a promising generic strategy for the development of robust CHO cell lines resistant to apoptotic insults and possessing improved culture characteristics to enhance recombinant glycoprotein yields.

Transcriptional profiling of batch and fed-batch protein-free 293-HEK cultures.

Dynamic nutrient feeding to control glutamine at low levels in protein-free fed-batch cultures of 293-human embryonic kidney (HEK) cells achieved cell concentrations of 6 x 10(6) cells/ml. This represented a 4-fold improvement in cell concentration compared to batch cultures. Reduction in glutamine and glucose consumption, as well as lactate and ammonia production, were also observed in these fed-batch cultures. High virus production titers of 3 x 10(11) pfu/ml were achieved in fed-batch cultures which were 10,000-fold higher than batch cultures. An investigation of the transcriptional regulation of the metabolic changes associated with the batch and the low-glutamine fed-batch cultures using DNA microarray was conducted. This analysis provides better understanding of the transcriptional regulatory mechanism resulting in the observed physiological changes. Transcriptional profiling of cells from the mid-exponential, late exponential and stationary phases of both the batch and fed-batch were undertaken using an 18,000 element human chip. Transcriptional profiles were ontologically classified to provide a global view of the genetic changes. Furthermore, a pathway-oriented analysis focusing on cellular metabolism was conducted to reveal the dynamic regulation of genes related to amino acid metabolism, tRNA synthetases, TCA cycle, electron transport chain and glycolysis.

Enhancement of transient gene expression by fed-batch culture of HEK 293 EBNA1 cells in suspension.

Enhanced green fluorescence protein (GFP) and erythropoietin (EPO) were used as reporters to assess and improve transient gene expression in HEK 293 EBNA1 cells. The production of EPO only lasted 3 days and reached 18.1 mg/l in suspension cultures in 1 l batch bioreactors. However, GFP expression examined in well-plate experiments persisted for 12 days in transfected cells but decreased rapidly within the next 15 days. These results suggest that the retaining of a plasmid in cells may not be a limiting factor for protein expression in large-scale transient transfection. To improve cell maintenance and protein expression, a fed-batch culture was performed using an enriched medium, a mixture of equal volumes of 293 SFM II medium and a 5 x amino acid solution prepared based on DMEM/F12 medium formula. EPO reached 33.6 mg/l, representing 86% increase over that of the batch culture. Moreover, the total amount of EPO produced was increased by 165% in view of the volume increase in the fed-batch culture. The serum-free medium used in this work enables cells growing well and transfection without medium change. Thus, the process reported here is simple and easy to scale up.

Elevation of gamma-glutamyltransferase activity in 293 HEK cells constitutively expressing antisense glutaminase mRNA.

Previous studies have shown that the use of dynamic nutrient feeding to maintain glutamine at low levels in fed-batch cultures reduced the overflow of glutamine metabolism. This strategy resulted in the shift of metabolism towards an energetically more efficient state signified by reduced lactate and ammonia production and thus achieving a higher cell density for enhanced productivity. In an effort to mimic the metabolic changes effected by this fed-batch strategy at the molecular level, 293 HEK cells were engineered via stable transfection with an antisense fragment of the rat phosphate-dependent glutaminase (PDG) gene. PDG is localized in the mitochondria and catalyzes the deamination of glutamine to glutamate with the release of ammonia. Stable single cell clones were isolated from the transfected populations. Characterization of these transfectants revealed indications of an altered glutamine metabolism affected by the antisense strategy. Contrary to our expectations, glutamine consumption and ammonia production in the antisense cells did not deviate significantly from that of untransfected cells. Glutamate was also observed to accumulate to high level extracellularly, as opposed to a consumption pattern normally observed in non-transfected cells. Subsequent analyses show that gamma-glutamyltransferase (gamma-GT) may be a significant pathway that resulted in the formation of glutamate and ammonia from glutamine catabolism extracellularly. gamma-GT has been widely investigated in renal glutamine metabolism, but has rarely been implicated in cultured cell metabolism. This study highlights the importance of this alternative glutamine metabolism pathway in cell culture.