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Effective cleaning of chromatography resin is required to prevent fouling and maximize the number of processing cycles which can be achieved. Optimization of resin cleaning procedures, however, can lead to prohibitive material, labor, and time requirements, even when using milliliter scale chromatography columns. In this work, high throughput (HT) techniques were used to evaluate cleaning agents for a monoclonal antibody (mAb) polishing step utilizing Fractogel(®) EMD TMAE HiCap (M) anion exchange (AEX) resin. For this particular mAb feed stream, the AEX resin could not be fully restored with traditional NaCl and NaOH cleaning solutions, resulting in a loss of impurity capacity with resin cycling. Miniaturized microliter scale chromatography columns and an automated liquid handling system (LHS) were employed to evaluate various experimental cleaning conditions. Cleaning agents were monitored for their ability to maintain resin impurity capacity over multiple processing cycles by analyzing the flowthrough material for turbidity and high molecular weight (HMW) content. HT experiments indicated that a 167 mM acetic acid strip solution followed by a 0.5 M NaOH, 2 M NaCl sanitization provided approximately 90% cleaning improvement over solutions containing solely NaCl and/or NaOH. Results from the microliter scale HT experiments were confirmed in subsequent evaluations at the milliliter scale. These results identify cleaning agents which may restore resin performance for applications involving fouling species in ion exchange systems. In addition, this work demonstrates the use of miniaturized columns operated with an automated LHS for HT evaluation of chromatographic cleaning procedures, effectively decreasing material requirements while simultaneously increasing throughput. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2016;113: 1251-1259. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Effective cleaning of chromatography resin is required to prevent fouling and maximize the number of processing cycles which can be achieved. Optimization of resin cleaning procedures, however, can lead to prohibitive material, labor, and time requirements, even when using milliliter scale chromatography columns. In this work, high throughput (HT) techniques were used to evaluate cleaning agents for a monoclonal antibody (mAb) polishing step utilizing Fractogel(®) EMD TMAE HiCap (M) anion exchange (AEX) resin. For this particular mAb feed stream, the AEX resin could not be fully restored with traditional NaCl and NaOH cleaning solutions, resulting in a loss of impurity capacity with resin cycling. Miniaturized microliter scale chromatography columns and an automated liquid handling system (LHS) were employed to evaluate various experimental cleaning conditions. Cleaning agents were monitored for their ability to maintain resin impurity capacity over multiple processing cycles by analyzing the flowthrough material for turbidity and high molecular weight (HMW) content. HT experiments indicated that a 167 mM acetic acid strip solution followed by a 0.5 M NaOH, 2 M NaCl sanitization provided approximately 90% cleaning improvement over solutions containing solely NaCl and/or NaOH. Results from the microliter scale HT experiments were confirmed in subsequent evaluations at the milliliter scale. These results identify cleaning agents which may restore resin performance for applications involving fouling species in ion exchange systems. In addition, this work demonstrates the use of miniaturized columns operated with an automated LHS for HT evaluation of chromatographic cleaning procedures, effectively decreasing material requirements while simultaneously increasing throughput. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2016;113: 1251-1259. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Affinity interaction based resins have long been the foundation for various purification platforms of biological molecules. For the purification of rAAV, the affinity resin AVB Sepharose HP (AVB) has been used to successfully purify a number of different serotypes. However, to date the use of AVB for the purification of the AAV8 serotype has been relatively unsuccessful due in part to modest binding capacity. In this work we investigate the use of a new, prototype affinity resin for the purification of AAV8 from crude feed streams. Performance of the AVB and prototype resins were directly compared for the purification of selected AAV8 feed streams. Differences in capacities, loading steps, wash step tolerances and elution steps will be discussed. In addition, the resulting performance of purifying AAV8 using the prototype resin is directly compared against the best case performance of the AVB resin purifying a different serotype more commonly used on AVB. Finally, the scale-up use of the prototype resin from bench to manufacturing will be discussed. These results demonstrate that the prototype affinity resin is a viable option for the scaleable, chromatographic purification of AAV8 from crude harvest streams.

The development and commercialization of a biological pharmaceutical, such as recombinant adeno associated virus (rAAV), requires rigorous quantitative and qualitative testing. An accurate particle titer measurement is important for the development of purification processes. Current methods for titering rAAV include qPCR, for measuring genome copy titer, and ELISA, for measuring particle titer. Additionally, methods such as dynamic light scattering (DLS) have been considered for assessment of particle size and aggregation but with limited success for rAAV. Here, a novel method is described called Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis (NTA), to provide rAAV titer (concentration) within minutes, as opposed to hours or days required by traditional techniques. NTA characterization was enabled by a gold labeling technique to increase the light scattered from rAAVs. With a purified gold labelled rAAV sample, NTA results indicated a monodisperse size distribution and a measured rAAV particle titer equivalent to the concentration based on genome copies by qPCR. Particle titer determination can also be relevant for assessment of product stability. NTA was used to assess the stability of rAAV over a 3 month thermal stress test. The NTA method enabled the detection of a reduction of the primary rAAV particle peak within 1 month, as well as further reductions over time. These initial results demonstrate the potential uses of NTA for product characterization.

Continued interest in using rAAV vectors as therapies for a range of indications with varying prevalence often translates to increased manufacturing scales. A significant challenge that is encountered is the use of different manufacturing materials during the transition between early research and development and the clinical manufacturing scale. For example, manufacturing components, ranging from bioprocessing bags and hard plastics to bioprocess tubing and filters can be constructed of different materials and are not often engineered for use with rAAV. In this work we investigate the loss of rAAV to non-specific surface adsorption on various materials of construction. In addition, the effect of different background matrices was also investigated. These data demonstrate that surface adsorptive loss of rAAV can be significant, and that losses can vary significantly even for materials of similar construction. To mitigate adsorptive loss, several surfactants and other components were examined for their ability to reduce surface adsorption of rAAV. A number of these agents were identified as viable options for cGMP manufacturing. These results provide insight for the development of scaleable, more robust and higher yielding manufacturing processes to meet the continued demand for rAAV therapeutics.

The recent resurgence of using rAAV vectors as commercially viable therapeutic agents has highlighted the need to identify stable capsid/genomic construct combinations which can both endure a typical cGMP manufacturing process and possess a long product shelf life. In this work we investigate the inherent stability of various capsids and genomic constructs using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). DSC measures the amount of energy required to increase the temperature of a sample and reference and can be used to determine the Tm of the molecule in question. Numerous commercially relevant rAAV serotypes containing several genomic constructs (self-complimentary and oversized genomes) were subjected to melting curve analysis using DSC to compare stability. Additionally, various mobile phase modifiers were added to solution in order to probe the stability of rAAV vector, using organics and kosmotropic/chaotropic salts. These results demonstrate DSC as an effective tool to examine inherent rAAV vector capsid stability and support a role for the serotype and vector genome structure to affect the observed stability.