Host Cell Protein Profiling in Biopharmaceutical Harvests.

Biopharmaceuticals contain residual host cell protein (HCP) impurities, a complex mixture of endogenous proteins from production cell lines such as Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells. The composition of HCP impurities at harvest hinges on multiple factors, e.g., identity of cell line, cell density and viability at harvest, or other process parameters. Two-dimensional differential gel electrophoresis (2-D DIGE) was used to compare HCP in 15 null cell culture harvest supernatants, which are representative for a wide range of manufacturing processes of therapeutic antibodies, using five different CHO cell lines. Numerical metrics were developed to quantitatively compare HCP composition, which may be used to assess the suitability of a platform HCP assay standard for a new product or to assess the impact of process changes. A very similar HCP composition was found for the 15 analyzed CHO null cell culture harvests, demonstrating that even the wide range of applied manufacturing processes did not have a strong influence on the HCP impurities.

Systematic generation of buffer systems for pH gradient ion exchange chromatography and their application.

pH gradient protein separations are widely used techniques in the field of protein analytics, of which isoelectric focusing is the most well known application. The chromatographic variant, based on the formation of pH gradients in ion exchange columns is only rarely applied due to the difficulties to form controllable, linear pH gradients over a broad pH range. This work describes a method for the systematic generation of buffer compositions with linear titration curves, resulting in well controllable pH gradients. To generate buffer compositions with linear titration curves an in silico method was successfully developed. With this tool, buffer compositions for pH gradient ion exchange chromatography with pH ranges spanning up to 7.5 pH units were established and successfully validated. Subsequently, the buffer systems were used to characterize the elution behavior of 22 different model proteins in cation and anion exchange pH gradient chromatography. The results of both chromatographic modes as well as isoelectric focusing were compared to describe differences in between the methods.

A high-throughput 2D-analytical technique to obtain single protein parameters from complex cell lysates for in silico process development of ion exchange chromatography.

The accelerating growth of the market for biopharmaceutical proteins, the market entry of biosimilars and the growing interest in new, more complex molecules constantly pose new challenges for bioseparation process development. In the presented work we demonstrate the application of a multidimensional, analytical separation approach to obtain the relevant physicochemical parameters of single proteins in a complex mixture for in silico chromatographic process development. A complete cell lysate containing a low titre target protein was first fractionated by multiple linear salt gradient anion exchange chromatography (AEC) with varying gradient length. The collected fractions were subsequently analysed by high-throughput capillary gel electrophoresis (HT-CGE) after being desalted and concentrated. From the obtained data of the 2D-separation the retention-volumes and the concentration of the single proteins were determined. The retention-volumes of the single proteins were used to calculate the related steric-mass action model parameters. In a final evaluation experiment the received parameters were successfully applied to predict the retention behaviour of the single proteins in salt gradient AEC.

Analytical characterization of complex, biotechnological feedstocks by pH gradient ion exchange chromatography for purification process development.

The accelerating growth of the market for proteins and the growing interest in new, more complex molecules are bringing new challenges to the downstream process development of these proteins. This results in a demand for faster, more cost efficient, and highly understood downstream processes. Screening procedures based on high-throughput methods are widely applied nowadays to develop purification processes for proteins. However, screening highly complex biotechnological feedstocks, such as complete cell lysates containing target proteins often expressed with a low titre, is still very challenging. In this work we demonstrate a multidimensional, analytical screening approach based on pH gradient ion exchange chromatography (IEC), gel electrophoresis and protein identification via mass spectrometry to rationally characterize a biotechnological feedstock for the purpose of purification process development. With this very simple characterization strategy a two-step purification based on consecutive IEC operations was rapidly laid out for the purification of a diagnostic protein from a cell lysate reaching a purity of ∼80%. The target protein was recombinantly produced using an insect cell expression system.

Isoform separation and binding site determination of mono-PEGylated lysozyme with pH gradient chromatography.

Covalent attachment of PEG to proteins, known as PEGylation, is currently one of the main approaches for improving the pharmacokinetics of biopharmaceuticals. However, the separation and characterization especially of positional isoforms of PEGylated proteins are still challenging tasks. A common purification strategy uses ion exchange chromatography with increasing ionic strength by shallow salt gradients. This paper presents a method which applies a linear pH gradient chromatography to separate five of six possible isoforms of mono-PEGylated lysozyme, modified with 5 kDa and 10 kDa mPEG-aldehyde. To identify the corresponding PEGylation sites a comparison of elution pH values and calculated isoelectric points of each isoform, was used. The resulting correlation showed an R(2)>0.99. Fractionation, tryptic digestion and subsequent MALDI-MS analysis of each peak, verified the predicted elution order. Based on UV areas the N-terminal amine at lysine 1 exhibited the highest reactivity, followed by the lysine 33 residue.