Influence of the methacrylate monolith structure on genomic DNA mechanical degradation, enzymes activity and clogging

Scaled preparation of extracellular vesicles from conditioned media

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) especially of mesenchymal stem/stomal cells (MSCs) are increasingly considered as biotherapeutic agents for a variety of different diseases. For translating them effectively into the clinics, scalable production processes fulfilling good manufacturing practice (GMP) are needed. Like for other biotherapeutic agents, the manufacturing of EV products can be subdivided in the upstream and downstream processing and the subsequent quality control, each of them containing several unit operations. During upstream processing (USP), cells are isolated, stored (cell banking) and expanded; furthermore, EV-containing conditioned media are produced. During downstream processing (DSP), conditioned media (CM) are processed to obtain concentrated and purified EV products. CM are either stored until DSP or are directly processed. As first unit operation in DSP, clarification removes remaining cells, debris and other larger impurities. The key operations of each EV DSP is volume-reduction combined with purification of the concentrated EVs. Most of the EV preparation methods used in conventional research labs including differential centrifugation procedures are limited in their scalability. Consequently, it is a major challenge in the therapeutic EV field to identify appropriate EV concentration and purification methods allowing scale up. As EVs share several features with enveloped viruses, that are used for more than two decades in the clinics now, several principles can be adopted to EV manufacturing. Here, we introduce and discuss volume reducing and purification methods frequently used for viruses and analyze their value for the manufacturing of EV-based therapeutics.

The use of size-exclusion chromatography in the isolation of supercoiled minicircle DNA from Escherichia coli lysate

Minicircle DNA (mcDNA) is the new cutting-edge technology which researchers have been exploring for gene therapy and DNA vaccination. Although it presents enormous advantages in comparison to conventional plasmid DNA regarding bioactivity and safety, its challenging isolation from parental plasmid and miniplasmid has been setting back its launching in biomedical sciences. In this work, it is demonstrated the use of a simple size exclusion chromatographic method for the isolation of supercoiled mcDNA. Sephacryl S-1000 SF matrix was explored under different conditions (flow, peak fractionation volume and sample loading) to achieve the best performance and retrieve a mcDNA sample devoid of other bacterial contaminants or plasmid species resultant from the recombination process. This isolation methodology resulted in 66.7% of mcDNA recovery with 98.1% of purity. In addition, to show the robustness of the method, the potential of using this matrix for the isolation of a larger mcDNA was also evaluated. Upon adjusting the flow or the column volume, the larger mcDNA molecule was also successfully isolated. Overall, a simple and effective strategy has been established for the isolation of supercoiled mcDNA, underlining the potential of size exclusion chromatography in mcDNA separation.

Solid-phase extraction based on ground methacrylate monolith modified with gold nanoparticles for isolation of proteins

In this study, a novel polymeric material functionalized with gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) was prepared as solid-phase extraction (SPE) sorbent for isolation of proteins. The sorbent was synthesized from a powdered poly(glycidyl-co-ethylene dimethacrylate) monolith, and modified with ammonia, followed by immobilization of AuNPs on the pore surface of the material. To evaluate the performance of this SPE support, proteins were selected as test solutes, being the extraction conditions and other parameters (loading capacity and regenerative ability of sorbent) established. The results indicated that this sorbent could be employed to selectively capture proteins according to their pI, on the basis of the strong affinity of these biomacromolecules towards to AuNPs surface. The applicability of this sorbent was demonstrated by isolating protein species of interest (bovine serum albumin, cytochrome c and lectins in European mistletoe leaves), followed by SDS-PAGE analysis.

Improved virus purification processes for vaccines and gene therapy

The downstream processing of virus particles for vaccination or gene therapy is becoming a critical bottleneck as upstream titers keep improving. Moreover, the growing pressure to develop cost-efficient processes has brought forward new downstream trains. This review aims at analyzing the state-of-the-art in viral downstream purification processes, encompassing the classical unit operations and their recent developments. Emphasis is given to novel strategies for process intensification, such as continuous or semi-continuous systems based on multicolumn technology, opening up process efficiency. Process understanding in the light of the pharmaceutical quality by design (QbD) initiative is also discussed. Finally, an outlook of the upcoming breakthrough technologies is presented.

Ring-opening metathesis polymerization-derived large-volume monolithic supports for reversed-phase and anion-exchange chromatography of biomolecules

Preparative-scale monolithic columns up to 433.5 mL in volume were prepared via transition metal-catalyzed ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) from norborn-2-ene (NBE) and trimethylolpropane-tris(5-norbornene-2-carboxylate) (CL) using the 1(st)-generation Grubbs initiator RuCl(2)(PCy(3))(2)(CHPh) (Cy = cyclohexyl) (1) in the presence of a macro- and microporogen, i.e. of 2-propanol and toluene. To prepare large-volume monoliths, bulk polymerizations were completed within borosilicate or PEEK column formats with diameters in the range of 3 to 49 mm. The pore structure of the large-volume monoliths was investigated by electron microscopy and inverse-size exclusion chromatography (ISEC), respectively. Monolithic columns with inner diameters (I.D.s) in the range of 10-49 mm were tested for the separation of a mixture of five proteins, i.e., insulin, cytochrome C, lysozyme, conalbumin, and β-lactoglobulin. Preparative separation of these proteins was achieved within less than 12 min in a 433.5 mL monolithic column by applying gradient elution in the RP-HPLC mode. Furthermore, weak and strong anion exchangers were prepared via post-synthesis grafting of bicyclo[2.2.1]hept-5-en-2-yl-methyl-N,N-dimethylammonium hydrochloride (4) and bicyclo[2.2.1]hept-5-en-2-ylmethyl-N,N,N-trimethylammonium iodide (5), respectively. The weak and strong anion exchangers were used for the preparative-scale separation of 5'-phosphorylated oligodeoxythymidylic acid fragments of d[pT](12-18) at pH values ranging from 5 to 9.

Less common applications of monoliths: IV. Recent developments in immobilized enzyme reactors for proteomics and biotechnology

Use of monolithic supports for enzyme immobilization has rapidly expanded since we published the preceding paper in the series of articles concerned with this topic almost three years ago. Many groups worldwide have realized the benefits of applying monoliths as support structures and used a variety of techniques to immobilize many different enzymes. Although some of these new developments are just refinements of the methods developed previously, some notable new approaches have also been reported. This review summarizes the literature published since 2006 and demonstrates the broad variability of reactive monoliths prepared from silica as well as from organic polymers in the form of disks, columns, and capillaries. All these monoliths were prepared by direct formation from reactive precursors or activation of preformed inactive structures. Interestingly, most of the applications of monolithic enzyme reactors target proteolytic digestion of proteins for proteomic analysis.

Isolation of cell-free DNA from plasma by chromatography on short monolithic columns and quantification of non-apoptotic fragments by real-time polymerase chain reaction

Human plasma is an important medical substance and a raw material for production of various therapeutics. During blood sampling, storage and processing, genomic DNA is released into plasma from nucleated blood cells that are damaged in the course of the procedure. In order to determine the concentration of contaminating DNA in plasma, we developed a method for DNA isolation by using anion-exchange chromatography on a BIA Separations CIM (convective interaction media) diethylaminoethyl column. DNA was quantified by SYBR Green based real-time polymerase chain reaction. The concentration of cell-free, non-apoptotic DNA in plasma ranged between 0.06 and 22.5 ng/ml. As substantial volumes of plasma or whole blood are administered directly into the vascular system, a recipient is exposed to high amounts of cell-free DNA, several orders of magnitude higher than the amount found in other biologicals.

Methacrylate-based short monolithic columns: enabling tools for rapid and efficient analyses of biomolecules and nanoparticles

This review describes the novel chromatography stationary phase--a porous monolithic methacrylate-based polymer--in terms of the design of the columns and some of the features that make these columns attractive for the purification of large biomolecules. We first start with a brief summary of the characteristics of these large molecules (more precisely large proteins like immunoglobulins G and M, plasmid deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), and viral particles), and a list of some of the problems that were encountered during the development of efficient purification processes. We then briefly describe the structure of the methacrylate-based monolith and emphasize the features which make them more than suitable for dealing with large entities. The highly efficient structure on a small scale can be transferred to a large scale without the need of making column modifications, and the various approaches of how this is accomplished are briefly presented in this paper. This is followed by presenting some of the examples from the bioprocess development schemes, where the implementation of the methacrylate-based monolithic columns has resulted in a very efficient and productive process. Following this, we move back to the analytical scale and demonstrate the efficiency of the monolithic column--where the mass transfer between the stationary and mobile phase is greatly enhanced--for the in-process and final control of the new therapeutics. The combination of an efficient structure and the appropriate hardware results in separations of proteins with residence time less than 0.1 s.