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Process intensification by application of perfusion mode in pre‐stage bioreactors and subsequent inoculation of cell cultures at high seeding densities (HSD) has the potential to meet the increasing requirements of future manufacturing demands. However, process development is currently restrained by a limited understanding of the cell's requirements under these process conditions. The goal of this study was to use extended metabolite analysis and metabolic modeling for targeted optimization of HSD cultivations. The metabolite analysis of HSD N‐stage cultures revealed accumulation of inhibiting metabolites early in the process and flux balance analysis led to the assumption that reactive oxygen species (ROS) were contributing to the fast decrease in cell viability. Based on the metabolic analysis an optimized feeding strategy with lactate and cysteine supplementation was applied, resulting in an increase in antibody titer of up to 47%. Flux balance analysis was further used to elucidate the surprisingly strong synergistic effect of lactate and cysteine, indicating that increased lactate uptake led to reduced ROS formation under these conditions whilst additional cysteine actively reduced ROS via the glutathione pathway. The presented results finally demonstrate the benefit of modeling approaches for process intensification as well as the potential of HSD cultivations for biopharmaceutical manufacturing., Extended metabolite analysis in combination with flux balance analysis was applied for targeted optimization of High Seeding Density (HSD) CHO cell cultures. Flux balance analysis revealed distinct metabolic phases with high reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation and increased cell specific productivities. Based on the metabolic analysis an optimized feeding strategy with lactate and cysteine supplementation was applied leading to an increase in product titer of up to 47%.

Biopharmaceutical manufacturing processes can be affected by variability in cell culture media, e.g. caused by raw material impurities. Although efforts have been made in industry and academia to characterize cell culture media and raw materials with advanced analytics, the process of industrial cell culture media preparation itself has not been reported so far. Within this publication, we first compare mid‐infrared and two‐dimensional fluorescence spectroscopy with respect to their suitability as online monitoring tools during cell culture media preparation, followed by a thorough assessment of the impact of preparation parameters on media quality. Through the application of spectroscopic methods, we can show that media variability and its corresponding root cause can be detected online during the preparation process. This methodology is a powerful tool to avoid batch failure and is a valuable technology for media troubleshooting activities. Moreover, in a design of experiments approach, including additional liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry analytics, it is shown that variable preparation parameters such as temperature, power input and preparation time can have a strong impact on the physico‐chemical composition of the media. The effect on cell culture process performance and product quality in subsequent fed‐batch processes was also investigated. The presented results reveal the need for online spectroscopic methods during the preparation process and show that media variability can already be introduced by variation in media preparation parameters, with a potential impact on scale‐up to a commercial manufacturing process.

Increase in both productivity and product yields in biopharmaceutical process development with recombinant protein producing mammalian cells can be mainly attributed to the advancements in cell line development, media, and process optimization. Only recently, genome-scale technologies enable a system-level analysis to elucidate the complex biomolecular basis of protein production in mammalian cells promising an increased process understanding and the deduction of knowledge-based approaches for further process optimization. Here, the use of gene expression profiling for the analysis of a low titer (LT) and high titer (HT) fed batch process using the same IgG producing CHO cell line was investigated. We found that gene expression (i) significantly differed in HT versus LT process conditions due to differences in applied chemically defined, serum-free media, (ii) changed over the time course of the fed batch processes, and that (iii) both metabolic pathways and 14 biological functions such as cellular growth or cell death were affected. Furthermore, detailed analysis of metabolism in a standard process format revealed the potential use of transcriptomics for rational media design as is shown for the case of lipid metabolism where the product titer could be increased by about 20% based on a lipid modified basal medium. The results demonstrate that gene expression profiling can be an important tool for mammalian biopharmaceutical process analysis and optimization.

The novel concept of isotopic dynamic 13C metabolic flux analysis (ID-13C MFA) enables integrated analysis of isotopomer data from isotopic transient and/or isotopic stationary phase of a 13C labeling experiment, short-time experiments, and an extended range of applications of 13C MFA. In the presented work, an experimental and computational framework consisting of short-time 13C labeling, an integrated rapid sampling procedure, a LC-MS analytical method, numerical integration of the system of isotopomer differential equations, and estimation of metabolic fluxes was developed and applied to determine intracellular fluxes in glycolysis, pentose phosphate pathway (PPP), and citric acid cycle (TCA) in Escherichia coli grown in aerobic, glucose-limited chemostat culture at a dilution rate of D = 0.10 h−1. Intracellular steady state concentrations were quantified for 12 metabolic intermediates. A total of 90 LC-MS mass isotopomers were quantified at sampling times t = 0, 91, 226, 346, 589 s and at isotopic stationary conditions. Isotopic stationarity was reached within 10 min in glycolytic and PPP metabolites. Consistent flux solutions were obtained by ID-13C MFA using isotopic dynamic and isotopic stationary 13C labeling data and by isotopic stationary 13C MFA (IS-13C MFA) using solely isotopic stationary data. It is demonstrated that integration of dynamic 13C labeling data increases the sensitivity of flux estimation, particularly at the glucose-6-phosphate branch point. The identified split ratio between glycolysis and PPP was 55%:44%. These results were confirmed by IS-13C MFA additionally using labeling data in proteinogenic amino acids (GC-MS) obtained after 5 h from sampled biomass. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2008;99: 1170–1185. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.