1
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Suk Lee Y, Lee J, Fang K, Gee GV, Rogers B, McNally D, Yoon S. Separation of full, empty, and partial adeno-associated virus capsids via anion-exchange chromatography with continuous recycling and accumulation. J Chromatogr B Analyt Technol Biomed Life Sci 2024; 1242:124206. [PMID: 38908134 DOI: 10.1016/j.jchromb.2024.124206] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/04/2024] [Revised: 05/28/2024] [Accepted: 06/11/2024] [Indexed: 06/24/2024]
Abstract
The field of recombinant adeno-associated virus (rAAV) gene therapy has attracted increasing attention over decades. Within the ongoing challenges of rAAV manufacturing, the co-production of impurities, such as empty and partial capsids containing no or truncated transgenes, poses a significant challenge. Due to their potential impact on drug efficacy and clinical safety, it is imperative to conduct comprehensive monitoring and characterization of these impurities prior to the release of the final gene therapy product. Nevertheless, existing analytical techniques encounter notable limitations, encompassing low throughput, long turnaround times, high sample consumption, and/or complicated data analysis. Chromatography-based analytical methods are recognized for their current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) alignment, high repeatability, reproducibility, low limit of detection, and rapid turnaround times. Despite these advantages, current anion exchange high pressure liquid chromatography (AEX-HPLC) methods struggle with baseline separation of partial capsids from full and empty capsids, resulting in inaccurate full-to-empty capsid ratio, as partial capsids are obscured within peaks corresponding to empty and full capsids. In this study, we present a unique analytical AEX method designed to characterize not only empty and full capsids but also partial capsids. This method utilizes continuous N-Rich chromatography with recycling between two identical AEX columns for the accumulation and isolation of partial capsids. The development process is comprehensively discussed, covering the preparation of reference materials representing full (rAAV-LacZ), partial (rAAV-GFP), and empty (rAAV-empty) capsids, N-rich method development, fraction analysis, determination of fluorescence response factors between capsid variants, and validation through comparison with other comparative techniques.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yong Suk Lee
- Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA 01854, USA
| | - Jaeweon Lee
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA 01854, USA
| | - Kun Fang
- MassBiologics, University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, Mattapan, MA 02126, USA
| | - Gretchen V Gee
- MassBiologics, University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, Mattapan, MA 02126, USA
| | - Benjamin Rogers
- MassBiologics, University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, Mattapan, MA 02126, USA
| | - David McNally
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA 01854, USA; MassBiologics, University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, Mattapan, MA 02126, USA
| | - Seongkyu Yoon
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA 01854, USA.
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2
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Fioretti I, Müller-Späth T, Aumann L, Sponchioni M. UV-based dynamic control improves the robustness of multicolumn countercurrent solvent gradient purification of oligonucleotides. Biotechnol J 2024; 19:e2400170. [PMID: 39014932 DOI: 10.1002/biot.202400170] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/16/2024] [Revised: 06/21/2024] [Accepted: 06/24/2024] [Indexed: 07/18/2024]
Abstract
Therapeutic oligonucleotides (ONs) have great potential to treat many diseases due to their ability to regulate gene expression. However, the inefficiency of standard purification techniques to separate the target sequence from molecularly similar variants is hindering development of large scale ON manufacturing at a reasonable cost. Multicolumn Countercurrent Solvent Gradient Purification (MCSGP) is a valuable process able to bypass the purity-yield tradeoff typical of single-column operations, and hence to make the ON production more sustainable from both an economic and environmental point of view. However, operating close to the optimum of MCSGP can be challenging, resulting in unstable process performance and in a drift in product quality, especially when running a continuous process for extended periods where process parameters such as temperature are prone to variation. In this work, we demonstrate how greater process robustness is introduced in the design and execution of MCSGP for the purification of a 20mer single-stranded DNA sequence through the implementation of UV-based dynamic control. With this novel approach, the cyclic steady state was reached already in the third cycle and disturbances coming from fluctuations in the feed quality, loading amount and temperature were effectively compensated allowing a stable operation close to the optimum. In response to the perturbations, the controlled process kept the standard deviation on product recovery below 3.4%, while for the non-controlled process it increased up to 27.5%.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ismaele Fioretti
- Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy
| | | | | | - Mattia Sponchioni
- Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy
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3
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Jing SY, Shi C, Gao D, Wang HB, Yao SJ, Lin DQ. Improved process design for monoclonal antibody charge variants separation with multicolumn counter-current solvent gradient purification. J Chromatogr A 2023; 1707:464292. [PMID: 37586302 DOI: 10.1016/j.chroma.2023.464292] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/16/2023] [Revised: 07/30/2023] [Accepted: 08/08/2023] [Indexed: 08/18/2023]
Abstract
The multicolumn counter-current solvent gradient purification (MCSGP) method has proven effective in addressing the issue of elution profile overlap for difficult-to-separate proteins, leading to improved purity and recovery. However, during the MCSGP process, the flow rate and proportion of loaded proteins undergo changes, causing a significant discrepancy between the elution profiles of batch process design and the actual MCSGP process. This mismatch negatively impacts the purity and recovery of the target protein. To address this challenge, an improved process design (reDesign) was proposed with the first-run MCSGP to mimic the actual continuous process and obtain elution profiles that closely resemble the real ones. The reDesign was demonstrated with both a model protein mixture and a sample of monoclonal antibody (mAb) with charge variants. For model protein mixture, the reDesign-based MCSGP process (reMCSGP) showed a remarkable improvement in recovery, increasing from 83.6% to 97.8% while maintaining a purity of more than 95%. For mAb sample, the recovery of reMCSGP improved significantly to 93.9%, surpassing the performance of normal MCSGP processes at a given purity level of more than 84%. In general, the new process design strategy developed in this work could generate a more representative elution profile that closely mirrors actual conditions in continuous processes, which enhances the separation performance of MCSGP.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shu-Ying Jing
- Key Laboratory of Biomass Chemical Engineering of Ministry of Education, Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Smart Biomaterials, College of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
| | - Ce Shi
- Key Laboratory of Biomass Chemical Engineering of Ministry of Education, Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Smart Biomaterials, College of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
| | - Dong Gao
- Hisun Biopharmaceutical Co., Ltd., Hangzhou 311404, China
| | - Hai-Bin Wang
- Hisun Biopharmaceutical Co., Ltd., Hangzhou 311404, China
| | - Shan-Jing Yao
- Key Laboratory of Biomass Chemical Engineering of Ministry of Education, Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Smart Biomaterials, College of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
| | - Dong-Qiang Lin
- Key Laboratory of Biomass Chemical Engineering of Ministry of Education, Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Smart Biomaterials, College of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China.
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4
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Kim TK, Bham AA, Fioretti I, Angelo J, Xu X, Ghose S, Morbidelli M, Sponchioni M. Role of the gradient slope during the product internal recycling for the multicolumn countercurrent solvent gradient purification of PEGylated proteins. J Chromatogr A 2023; 1692:463868. [PMID: 36803771 DOI: 10.1016/j.chroma.2023.463868] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/11/2022] [Revised: 02/06/2023] [Accepted: 02/08/2023] [Indexed: 02/11/2023]
Abstract
Protein PEGylation, i.e. functionalization with poly(ethylene glycol) chains, has been demonstrated an efficient way to improve the therapeutic index of these biopharmaceuticals. We demonstrated that Multicolumn Countercurrent Solvent Gradient Purification (MCSGP) is an efficient process for the separation of PEGylated proteins (Kim et al., Ind. and Eng. Chem. Res. 2021, 60, 29, 10764-10776), thanks to the internal recycling of product-containing side fractions. This recycling phase plays a critical role in the economy of MCSGP as it avoids wasting valuable product, but at the same time impacts its productivity extending the overall process duration. In this study, our aim is to elucidate the role of the gradient slope within this recycling stage on the yield and productivity of MCSGP for two case-studies: PEGylated lysozyme and an industrially relevant PEGylated protein. While all the examples of MCSGP in the literature refer to a single gradient slope in the elution phase, for the first time we systematically investigate three different gradient configurations: i) a single gradient slope throughout the entire elution, ii) recycling with an increased gradient slope, to shed light on the competition between volume of the recycled fraction and required inline dilution and iii) an isocratic elution during the recycling phase. The dual gradient elution proved to be a valuable solution for boosting the recovery of high-value products, with the potential for alleviating the pressure on the upstream processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tae Keun Kim
- Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Via Mancinelli 7 20131 Milano, Italy
| | - Abdallah Ayub Bham
- Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Via Mancinelli 7 20131 Milano, Italy
| | - Ismaele Fioretti
- Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Via Mancinelli 7 20131 Milano, Italy
| | - James Angelo
- Biologics Process Development, Global Product Development and Supply, Bristol Myers Squibb, Inc., Devens, MA, 01434, USA
| | - Xuankuo Xu
- Biologics Process Development, Global Product Development and Supply, Bristol Myers Squibb, Inc., Devens, MA, 01434, USA
| | - Sanchayita Ghose
- Biologics Process Development, Global Product Development and Supply, Bristol Myers Squibb, Inc., Devens, MA, 01434, USA
| | - Massimo Morbidelli
- Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Via Mancinelli 7 20131 Milano, Italy
| | - Mattia Sponchioni
- Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Via Mancinelli 7 20131 Milano, Italy.
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Khanal O. Mathematical modeling and process analytical technology for continuous chromatography of biopharmaceutical products. Curr Opin Biotechnol 2022; 78:102796. [PMID: 36152423 DOI: 10.1016/j.copbio.2022.102796] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/01/2021] [Revised: 08/13/2022] [Accepted: 08/25/2022] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Abstract
Chromatography is a widely used separation method that is inherently a batch operation. However, the demand for higher productivity and lower cost and labor has prompted industries such as the petrochemical and food industries to transition from batch to continuous chromatography. Growing market competition in the biopharmaceutical industry and the rise of novel biotherapeutics modalities have brought about promising continuous chromatography methods as well as next-generation tools to enable continuous operation in bioprocessing. While these continuous chromatography methods outperform their batch counterpart, their implementation presents challenges due to their greater complexity. This review discusses two key technologies that are essential for the implementation of continuous chromatography: mathematical modeling and novel process analytical technologies. Mechanistic-based models not only aid in process development and optimization but also allow for greater process control and automation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ohnmar Khanal
- Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716, USA.
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6
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Kim TK, Sechi B, Romero Conde JJ, Angelo J, Xu X, Ghose S, Morbidelli M, Sponchioni M. Design and economic investigation of a Multicolumn Countercurrent Solvent Gradient Purification unit for the separation of an industrially relevant PEGylated protein. J Chromatogr A 2022; 1681:463487. [PMID: 36115185 DOI: 10.1016/j.chroma.2022.463487] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/08/2022] [Revised: 08/31/2022] [Accepted: 09/05/2022] [Indexed: 10/14/2022]
Abstract
Conjugation of biopharmaceuticals to polyethylene glycol chains, known as PEGylation, is nowadays an efficient and widely exploited strategy to improve critical properties of the active molecule, including stability, biodistribution profile, and reduced clearance. A crucial step in the manufacturing of PEGylated drugs is the purification. The reference process in industrial settings is single-column chromatography, which can meet the stringent purity requisites only at the expenses of poor product recoveries. A valuable solution to this trade-off is the Multicolumn Countercurrent Solvent Gradient Purification (MCSGP), which allows the internal and automated recycling of product-containing side fractions that are typically discarded in the batch processes. In this study, an ad hoc design procedure was applied to the single-column batch purification of an industrially relevant PEGylated protein, with the aim of defining optimal collection window, elution duration and elution buffer ionic strength to be then transferred to the MCSGP. This significantly alleviates the design of the continuous operation, subjected to manifold process parameters. The MCSGP designed by directly transferring the optimal parameters allowed to improve the yield and productivity by 8.2% and 17.8%, respectively, when compared to the corresponding optimized batch process, ensuring a purity specification of 98.0%. Once the efficacy of MCSGP was demonstrated, a detailed analysis of its cost of goods was performed and compared to the case of single-column purification. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first example of a detailed economic investigation of the MCSGP across different manufacturing scenarios and process cadences of industrial relevance, which demonstrated not only the viability of this continuous technology but also its flexibility.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tae Keun Kim
- Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Via Mancinelli 7, Milano 20131, Italy
| | - Benedetta Sechi
- Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Via Mancinelli 7, Milano 20131, Italy
| | - Juan Jose Romero Conde
- Biologics Process Development, Global Product Development and Supply, Bristol Myers Squibb Inc., Devens, MA 01434, USA
| | - James Angelo
- Biologics Process Development, Global Product Development and Supply, Bristol Myers Squibb Inc., Devens, MA 01434, USA
| | - Xuankuo Xu
- Biologics Process Development, Global Product Development and Supply, Bristol Myers Squibb Inc., Devens, MA 01434, USA
| | - Sanchayita Ghose
- Biologics Process Development, Global Product Development and Supply, Bristol Myers Squibb Inc., Devens, MA 01434, USA
| | - Massimo Morbidelli
- Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Via Mancinelli 7, Milano 20131, Italy
| | - Mattia Sponchioni
- Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Via Mancinelli 7, Milano 20131, Italy.
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7
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Lievore G, Weldon R, Catani M, Cavazzini A, Müller-Späth T. Enrichment and recovery of oligonucleotide impurities by N-Rich twin-column continuous chromatography. J Chromatogr B Analyt Technol Biomed Life Sci 2022; 1209:123439. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jchromb.2022.123439] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/10/2022] [Revised: 08/24/2022] [Accepted: 08/25/2022] [Indexed: 10/15/2022]
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8
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Fioretti I, Müller-Späth T, Weldon R, Vogg S, Morbidelli M, Sponchioni M. Continuous countercurrent chromatographic twin-column purification of oligonucleotides: the role of the displacement effect. Biotechnol Bioeng 2022; 119:1861-1872. [PMID: 35338661 PMCID: PMC9322279 DOI: 10.1002/bit.28093] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/24/2021] [Revised: 03/17/2022] [Accepted: 03/20/2022] [Indexed: 11/10/2022]
Abstract
Oligonucleotides (ONs) are breaking through in the biopharmaceutical industry as a promising class of biotherapeutics. The main success of these molecules is due to their peculiar way of acting in the cellular process, regulating the gene expression and hence influencing the protein synthesis at a pre-translational level. Although the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) already approved a few ON-based therapeutics, their production cost strongly limits large scale manufacturing: a situation that can be alleviated through process intensification. In this work, we address this problem by developing an efficient and continuous chromatographic purification process for ONs. In particular, we considered the chromatographic purification of a ON crude prepared by chemical synthesis using anion exchange resins. We demonstrate that in this system the competitive adsorption of the various species on the same sites of the resin leads to the displacement of the more weakly adsorbing species by the more strongly adsorbing ones. This phenomenon affects the behavior of the chromatographic units and it has been investigated in detail. Then, we developed a continuous countercurrent solvent gradient purification (MCSGP) process, which can significantly improve the productivity and buffer consumption compared to a classical single-column, batch chromatographic process. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ismaele Fioretti
- Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Via Mancinelli 7, Milano, 20131, Italy
| | | | - Richard Weldon
- YMC ChromaCon, Technoparkstrasse 1, 8005, Zürich, Switzerland
| | - Sebastian Vogg
- YMC ChromaCon, Technoparkstrasse 1, 8005, Zürich, Switzerland
| | - Massimo Morbidelli
- Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Via Mancinelli 7, Milano, 20131, Italy
| | - Mattia Sponchioni
- Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Via Mancinelli 7, Milano, 20131, Italy
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9
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Narayanan H, Sponchioni M, Morbidelli M. Integration and digitalization in the manufacturing of therapeutic proteins. Chem Eng Sci 2022. [DOI: 10.1016/j.ces.2021.117159] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/08/2023]
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10
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Sivo A, Kim TK, Ruta V, Luisi R, Osorio-Tejada J, Escriba-Gelonch M, Hessel V, Sponchioni M, Vilé G. Enhanced flow synthesis of small molecules by in-line integration of sequential catalysis and benchtop twin-column continuous chromatography. REACT CHEM ENG 2022. [DOI: 10.1039/d2re00242f] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
In-line integration of sequential catalysis and continuous multi-column purification. Adapted for small compound amounts (hit-to-lead). Suitable for large-scale purification (process chemistry).
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Affiliation(s)
- Alessandra Sivo
- Department of Chemistry, Materials, and Chemical Engineering “Giulio Natta”, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, IT-20131 Milano, Italy
| | - Tae Keun Kim
- Department of Chemistry, Materials, and Chemical Engineering “Giulio Natta”, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, IT-20131 Milano, Italy
| | - Vincenzo Ruta
- Department of Chemistry, Materials, and Chemical Engineering “Giulio Natta”, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, IT-20131 Milano, Italy
| | - Renzo Luisi
- Department of Pharmacy – Drug Sciences, University of Bari “A. Moro”, Via E. Orabona 4, IT-70125 Bari, Italy
| | | | | | - Volker Hessel
- School of Chemical Engineering and Advanced Materials, The University of Adelaide, North Terrace Campus, Adelaide, 5005, Australia
| | - Mattia Sponchioni
- Department of Chemistry, Materials, and Chemical Engineering “Giulio Natta”, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, IT-20131 Milano, Italy
| | - Gianvito Vilé
- Department of Chemistry, Materials, and Chemical Engineering “Giulio Natta”, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, IT-20131 Milano, Italy
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