N-glycosylation profile analysis of Trastuzumab biosimilar candidates by Normal Phase Liquid Chromatography and MALDI-TOF MS approaches.

The pharmaceutical market has entered an era in which the production of new therapeutics is being often replaced by "biosimilars", copies of already commercialized products waiting for the patents to expire in order to be distributed in a more competitive and affordable manners. Due to its relevance, the ErbB2-targeted monoclonal antibody Trastuzumab (Herceptin) used as breast cancer therapy is one of the main targets in the production of biosimilars. A major challenge is to produce antibodies with the same or the closest N-glycosylation pattern seen in the commercialized drug. Several factors, such as growing conditions or cell types employed, can determine the final composition and structure of the glycans, significantly affecting the properties of the generated antibodies. Therefore, an appropriate characterization is essential. In the present study, we describe two different but complementary strategies to characterize the N-glycosylation of two biosimilar candidates of Trastuzumab. In the first case, N-glycans are fluorescently labeled and separated by Normal Phase HPLC. Different sugars will elute at different times and can be identified using specific oligosaccharide standards. In the second approach, released glycans are permethylated and analyzed by MALDI-TOF MS, being able to determine the structure because of the differential sugar masses. BIOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE: The characterization of the N-glycosylation sites of therapeutic recombinant monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) is usually one of the most critical and time consuming steps in the developing process of biosimilars or any other glycosylated drug. Herein we describe two different but complementary approaches to characterize mAbs glycosylation patterns, the use of glycan fluorescence labeling coupled to HPLC and MALDI-TOF MS profile analysis. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: HUPO 2014.

New aspects concerning to the characterization and the relationship with the immune response in vivo of the spiny lobster Panulirus argus nitric oxide synthase.

Nitric oxide (NO) is a short-lived radical generated by nitric oxide synthases (NOS). NO is involved in a variety of functions in invertebrates, including host defense. In a previous study, we isolated and sequenced for the first time the NOS gene from hemocytes of Panulirus argus, demonstrating the inducibility of this enzyme by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in vitro. In the present work, lobster hemocytes and gills exposed to Escherichia coli O55:B5 LPS showed an increase in both NOS activity and NOS gene expression in vivo. This response was dose and time dependent. The 3D NOS structure was predicted by comparative modeling showing the oxygenase and reductase domains. These domains contain the conserved binding motifs of NOS already found in a variety of organisms. The 3D structure prediction analysis allowed the selection of a fragment of 666bp that was cloned and subsequently expressed in E. coli BL21, in which a recombinant product of around 31KDa was obtained. Hyperimmune serum obtained from immunized rabbits was tested and employed to specifically detect the recombinant polypeptide or the endogenous NOS from lobster hemocytes by western blot and immunofluorescence. This study contributes to enlarge the existing knowledge related to NOS structure and NOS participation in the immune response in lobsters. The evaluation of an antibody capable to recognize NOS from lobsters constitutes a novel and interesting tool for the implementation of further studies on NOS functions in crustaceans.

Establishment of long term cultures of neural stem cells from adult sea bass, Dicentrarchus labrax.

Long term cell cultures could be obtained from brains of adult sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) up to 5 days post mortem. On three different occasions, sea bass brain tissues were dissected, dispersed and cultured in Leibovitz's L-15 media supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum. The resulting cellular preparations could be passaged within 2 or 3 weeks of growth. The neural cells derived from the first trial (SBB-W1) have now been passaged over 24 times within two years. These cells have been cryopreserved and thawed successfully. SBB-W1 cells are slow growing with doubling times requiring at least 7 days at 22 degrees C. These long term cell cultures could be grown in suspension as neurospheres that were immunopositive for nestin, a marker for neural stem cells, or grown as adherent monolayers displaying both glial and neural morphologies. Immunostaining with anti-glial fibrillary acidic protein (a glial marker) and anti-neurofilament (a neuronal marker), yielded positive staining in most cells, suggesting their possible identity as neural stem cells. Furthermore, Sox 2, a marker for neural stem cells, could be detected from these cell extracts as well as proliferating cell nuclear antigen, a marker for proliferating cells. SBB-W1 could be transfected using pEGFP-N1 indicating their viability and suitability as convenient models for neurophysiological or neurotoxicological studies.