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Despite advancements in therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and cell line engineering, separating host cell proteins (HCPs) from mAbs during downstream purification remains challenging. Therefore, in this study, we developed a novel multimodal chromatography (MMC) resin to enhance HCP removal during mAb polishing processes. We evaluated the impact of both ligand structure and pore size of the MMC resin by purifying a post-protein A chromatography solution in flow-through mode. We observed that the efficiency of HCP clearance depended on the hydrophobic moiety structure of the ligand and predicted the mAb purification capability of MMC through linear salt-gradient elution experiments involving a mixture of transferrin, bovine serum albumin (BSA), and pepsin. Our findings revealed that the prototype immobilized 1,12-dodecanediamine via the formyl group exhibited the best performance attributed to its long alkyl chain. Furthermore, an investigation of effects of base bead pore size on HCP capacity using cellulose base beads of five different pore sizes showed that larger pore resin base beads had the highest HCP removal capacity. Specifically, MMC resins with a pore diameter exceeding 440 nm reduced the HCP level by three orders of magnitude under high mAb loading conditions (> 1000 mg/mL-resin). The MMC resin developed in this study, along with the insights gained into ligand structure and pore size, not only enhances mAb polishing efficiency but also contributes to improving downstream processes in mAb biopharmaceutical production., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Secretory pathway proteins are cotranslationally translocated into the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) of metazoan cells through the protein channel, translocon. Given that there are far fewer translocons than ribosomes in a cell, it is essential that secretory protein-translating ribosomes only occupy translocons transiently. Therefore, if translocons are obstructed by ribosomes stalled or slowed in translational elongation, it possibly results in deleterious consequences to cellular function. Hence, we investigated how translocon clogging by stalled ribosomes affects mammalian cells. First, we constructed ER-destined translational arrest proteins (ER-TAP) as an artificial protein that clogged the translocon in the ER membrane. Here, we show that the translocon clogging by ER-TAP expression activates triage of signal sequences (SS) in which secretory pathway proteins harboring highly efficient SS are preferentially translocated into the ER lumen. Interestingly, the translocon obstructed status specifically activates inositol requiring enzyme 1α (IRE1α) but not protein kinase R-like ER kinase (PERK). Given that the IRE1α-XBP1 pathway mainly induces the translocon components, our discovery implies that lowered availability of translocon activates IRE1α, which induces translocon itself. This results in rebalance between protein influx into the ER and the cellular translocation capacity.Key words: endoplasmic reticulum, translocation capacity, translocon clogging, IRE1, signal sequence.