Optimization of the production process for the anticancer lead compound illudin M: downstream processing

Background

Secondary metabolites have played a key role as starting points for drug development programs due to their often unique features compared with synthetically derived molecules. However, limitations related to the discovery and supply of these molecules by biotechnological means led to the retraction of big pharmaceutical companies from this field. The reasons included problems associated with strain culturing, screening, re-discovery, purification and characterization of novel molecules from natural sources. Nevertheless, recent reports have described technical developments that tackle such issues. While many of these reports focus on the identification and characterization of such molecules to enable subsequent chemical synthesis, a biotechnological supply strategy is rarely reported. This may be because production processes usually fall under proprietary research and/or few processes may meet the requirements of a pharmaceutical development campaign. We aimed to bridge this gap for illudin M—a fungal sesquiterpene used for the development of anticancer agents—with the intention to show that biotechnology can be a vital alternative to synthetic processes dealing with small molecules.

Results

We used µL-scale models to develop an adsorption and extraction strategy for illudin M recovery from culture supernatant of Omphalotus nidiformis and these findings were successfully transferred into lab-scale. By adsorbing and eluting the product using a fixed resin-bed we reduced the working volume by ~ 90% and removed the aqueous phase from the process. After a washing step, a highly concentrated illudin M fraction was obtained by isocratic elution with 80% methanol. The fraction was dried and extracted using a water/heptane mixture, enriching illudin M in the heptane phase. From heptane illudin M could be instantly crystalized by concentrating the solution, achieving a final purity > 95%.

Conclusion

We have developed a robust, scalable and low-cost downstream process to obtain highly pure illudin M. By using solid phase extraction we reduced the production of solvent waste. Heptane from the final purification step could be recycled. The reduced amounts of solvents required, and the short purification time render this method a very economic and ecologic alternative to published processes.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12934-022-01886-2.

Proceedings of the 2017 Viral Clearance Symposium, Session 6: Ensuring Viral Safety in Continuous Processing

To ensure successful scale-up of continuous processing to large-scale production, it is necessary to seamlessly incorporate viral testing and clearance/inactivation into representative small-scale models. For the first time, a session devoted to the adaptation of standard viral clearance/inactivation unit operations to continuous processing was held at the Viral Clearance Symposium (VCS), with an emphasis on design of valid small-scale models. In this session, the presentations and subsequent discussions identified challenges as well as pathways forward for these emerging technologies. In the first two talks, two different strategies on how to validate continuous low pH viral inactivation (VI) were discussed, focusing on molecule stability and XMuLV inactivation kinetics in the lower residence times of continuous manufacturing, in addition to mathematics-based modeling of continuous viral inactivation processes. The third talk in the session presented a strategy to adapt weak anion exchange chromatography to a continuous manufacturing process by taking advantage of the elution pulses from bind and elute chromatography. The final and fourth talk provided data from novel spiking strategies in consideration of the high, but fluctuating, product titers in the context of continuous flow encountered in continuous manufacturing processes.LAY ABSTRACT: To ensure successful scale-up of continuous processing to large-scale production, it is necessary to seamlessly incorporate viral testing and clearance/inactivation into representative small-scale models.For example, in this session, strategies to validate continuous low pH viral inactivation were discussed.In addition, data from novel spiking strategies in consideration of the high, but fluctuating, product titers in the context of continuous manufacturing processes were presented.