Automized inline monitoring in perfused mammalian cell culture by MIR spectroscopy without calibration model building

Process Analytical Technologies (PATs) are taking a key role in the run for automatization in the biopharmaceutical industry. Spectroscopic methods such as Raman spectroscopy or mid-infrared (MIR) spectroscopy are getting more recognition in the recent years for inline monitoring of bioprocesses due to their ability to measure various molecules simultaneously. However, their dependency on laborious model calibration making them a challenge to implement. In this study, a novel one-point calibration that requires a single reference point prior to the inline monitoring of glucose and lactate in bioprocesses with MIR spectroscopy is assessed with 22 mammalian cell perfusion (PER) processes in two different scales and four different products. Concentrations are predicted over all PERs runs with a root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.29 g/L for glucose and 0.24 g/L for lactate, respectively. For comparison conventional partial least square regression (PLSR) models were used and trained with spectroscopic data from six bioreactor runs in two different scales and three products. The general accuracy of those models (RMSE of 0.41 g/L for glucose and 0.16 g/L for lactate) are in the range of the accuracy of the one-point calibration. This shows the potential of the one-point calibration as an approach making spectroscopy more accessible for bioprocess development.

Automated multi-scale cascade of parallel stirred-tank bioreactors for fast protein expression studies

Automation, parallelization and autonomous operation of standard lab equipment, usually applied for manual bioprocess development, is considered as the key for reduction of bioprocess development time and costs. An automated bioreactor system with 4 stirred-tank bioreactors on a L-scale was combined with a custom-made biomass transfer system to distribute the cell suspensions produced on the L-scale into 48 parallel stirred-tank bioreactors on a mL-scale. Afterwards parallel protein expression studies automated by a liquid handling system with integrated fluorescence reader were performed. Isopropyl β-D-1-thiogalactopyranoside-induced (IPTG) expression of the red fluorescence protein mCherry was studied as an example of using fed-batch processes with recombinant Escherichia coli. In a first automated study, IPTG concentrations were varied in 48 parallel fed-batch processes with E. coli cells produced at a growth rate of 0.1 h^-1 on an L-scale and transferred automatically to the mL-scale. The mCherry expression rate increased with increasing inducer concentration until the highest protein expression rate was observed at > 9 μM IPTG. In a second automated study, the growth rate of E. coli was varied between 0.1-0.2 h^-1 in parallelly-operated stirred-tank bioreactors on a L-scale. The cells were automatically transferred and distributed into the stirred-tank bioreactors on a mL-scale and the concentration of the inducer IPTG was varied as before in parallel fed-batch processes. An increased growth rate during the production of the recombinant E. coli cells and/or higher cell densities during protein expression resulted in the increased IPTG concentrations necessary to achieve identical expression rates compared to a growth rate of 0.1 h^-1 with the exception of very low inducer concentrations and inducer concentrations in excess. The new automated multi-scale cascade of parallel stirred-tank bioreactors should easily be applicable for performing fast optimisation studies with other microbial production systems and will have the potential to reduce bioprocess development time and staff assignment considerably.