Protein A affinity chromatography of Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell culture broths containing biopharmaceutical monoclonal antibody (mAb): Experiments and mechanistic transport, binding and equilibrium modeling

Abstract

Protein A-based affinity chromatography is a highly-efficient separation method to capture, purify and isolate biosimilar monoclonal antibodies (mAb) - an important medical product of biopharmaceutical industrial manufacturing. It is considered the most expensive step in purification downstream operations; therefore, its performance optimization offers a great cost saving in the overall production expenditure. The biochemical mixture-separating specific interaction experiments with Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell culture harvest, containing glycosylated extracellular immunoglobulins (Ig), were made using five different state-of-the-art commercial resins. Packing breakthrough curves were recorded at an array of prolonged residence times. A mathematical simulation model was developed, applied and validated in combination with non-linear regression algorithms on bed effluent concentrations to determine the previously-unknown binding properties of stationary phase materials. Apart from the columns' differential partitioning, the whole external system was also integrated. It was confirmed that internal pore diffusion is the global rate-limiting resistance of the compound retention process. Immobilizing substrate characteristics, obtained in this engineering study, are indispensable for the scale-up of the periodic counter-current control with mechanistic load, elution and wash reduction. Furthermore, unit's volumetric flow screening measurements revealed dynamic effect correlation to eluate quality parameters, like the presence of aggregates, the host cell-related impurities at supernatant's extended feeding, and titre. Numerical sensitivity outputs demonstrated the impacts of fluidics (e.g. axial dispersion coefficient), thermodynamics (Langmuir adsorption) and mass transfer fluxes.

Keywords: Biopharmaceutical monoclonal antibody; Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells; Mass transfer general rate model; Protein A affinity chromatography; Separation thermodynamic equilibrium; Stationary phase structure–activity relationships.