Optimization of erythropoietin production with controlled glycosylation-PEGylated erythropoietin produced in glycoengineered Pichia pastoris.

Pichia pastoris is a methylotropic yeast that has gained great importance as an organism for protein expression in recent years. Here, we report the expression of recombinant human erythropoietin (rhEPO) in glycoengineered P. pastoris. We show that glycosylation fidelity is maintained in fermentation volumes spanning six orders of magnitude and that the protein can be purified to high homogeneity. In order to increase the half-life of rhEPO, the purified protein was coupled to polyethylene glycol (PEG) and then compared to the currently marketed erythropoiesis stimulating agent, Aranesp(®) (darbepoetin). In in vitro cell proliferation assays the PEGylated protein was slightly, and the non-PEGylated protein was significantly more active than comparator. Pharmacodynamics as well as pharmacokinetic activity of PEGylated rhEPO in animals was comparable to that of Aranesp(®). Taken together, our results show that glycoengineered P. pastoris is a suitable production host for rhEPO, yielding an active biologic that is comparable to those produced in current mammalian host systems.

Improved production of monoclonal antibodies through oxygen-limited cultivation of glycoengineered yeast.

Glycoengineering technology can elucidate and exploit glycan related structure-function relationships for therapeutic proteins. Glycoengineered yeast has been established as a safe, robust, scalable, and economically viable expression platform. It has been found that specific productivity of antibodies in glycoengineered Pichia pastoris is a non-linear function of specific growth rate that is dictated by a limited methanol feed rate. The optimal carbon-limited cultivation requires an exponential methanol feed rate with an increasing biomass concentration and more significantly an increase in heat and mass transfer requirements that often become the limiting factor in scale-up. Both heat and mass transfer are stoichiometrically linked to the oxygen uptake rate. Consequently an oxygen-limited cultivation approach was evaluated to limit the oxygen uptake rate and ensure robust and reliable scale-up. The oxygen-limited process not only limited the maximum oxygen uptake rate (and consequently the required heat removal rate) in mut+ P. pastoris strains but also enabled extension of the induction phase leading to an increased antibody concentration (1.9gL(-1) vs. 1.2gL(-1)), improved N-glycan composition and galactosylation, and reduced antibody fragmentation. Furthermore, the oxygen-limited process was successfully scaled to manufacturing pilot scale and thus presents a promising process option for the glycoengineered yeast protein expression platform.

High-throughput screening and selection of yeast cell lines expressing monoclonal antibodies.

The methylotrophic yeast Pichia pastoris has recently been engineered to express therapeutic glycoproteins with uniform human N-glycans at high titers. In contrast to the current art where producing therapeutic proteins in mammalian cell lines yields a final product with heterogeneous N-glycans, proteins expressed in glycoengineered P. pastoris can be designed to carry a specific, preselected glycoform. However, significant variability exists in fermentation performance between genotypically similar clones with respect to cell fitness, secreted protein titer, and glycan homogeneity. Here, we describe a novel, multidimensional screening process that combines high and medium throughput tools to identify cell lines producing monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). These cell lines must satisfy multiple selection criteria (high titer, uniform N-glycans and cell robustness) and be compatible with our large-scale production platform process. Using this selection process, we were able to isolate a mAb-expressing strain yielding a titer (after protein A purification) in excess of 1 g/l in 0.5-l bioreactors.

Selection of Pichia pastoris strains expressing recombinant immunoglobulin G by cell surface labeling.

A simple cell labeling method for sorting yeast Pichia pastoris antibody expressing strains is described. A small portion of secreted recombinant antibody retained on the cell surface was labeled with fluorescence detection antibody. The signal intensity of the labeled cell was correlated with the cell's antibody productivity. Using this labeling technique to sort a mixture model induced in the same fermenter where the cells of high producing strain were spiked into a population of a low producing strain at the frequency of 1:100,000, one round of sorting achieved a approximately 5000-fold enrichment of the high producing strain. A variety of P.pastoris strains expressing antibody sorted based on the signal intensity on the cell surface yielded titer improvements by 30% to 300%. Our data demonstrate that Pichia cell surface labeling is a simple, effective and reliable method for sorting Pichia antibody expressing strains for productivity improvement.

The Chinese hamster dihydrofolate reductase replication origin decision point follows activation of transcription and suppresses initiation of replication within transcription units.

Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells select specific replication origin sites within the dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) locus at a discrete point during G1 phase, the origin decision point (ODP). Origin selection is sensitive to transcription but not protein synthesis inhibitors, implicating a pretranslational role for transcription in origin specification. We have constructed a DNA array covering 121 kb surrounding the DHFR locus, to comprehensively investigate replication initiation and transcription in this region. When nuclei isolated within the first 3 h of G1 phase were stimulated to initiate replication in Xenopus egg extracts, replication initiated without any detectable preference for specific sites. At the ODP, initiation became suppressed from within the Msh3, DHFR, and 2BE2121 transcription units. Active transcription was mostly confined to these transcription units, and inhibition of transcription by alpha-amanitin resulted in the initiation of replication within transcription units, indicating that transcription is necessary to limit initiation events to the intergenic region. However, the resumption of DHFR transcription after mitosis took place prior to the ODP and so is not on its own sufficient to suppress initiation of replication. Together, these results demonstrate a remarkable flexibility in sequence selection for initiating replication and implicate transcription as one important component of origin specification at the ODP.