A novel control scheme for inducing angiostatin-human IgG fusion protein production using recombinant CHO cells in a oscillating bioreactor

In this study, a novel control scheme for inducing protein production using a recombinant CHO cell line in a BelloCell® bioreactor was developed. This control scheme was applied in a simple regular semi-batch process. Production of angiostatin-human IgG fusion protein in a suspension recombinant CHO cell culture and a protein-free medium was used for this study.The bottom holding time (BH) was the sole operating variable to control the exposure time of the cells immobilized on the carriers to the air and allow the nutrient remained on the liquid film of the carriers to be consumed to a threshold level so that the cells can be arrested and promoted for protein production. In the cell cultures with various BH (1.5–90 min), final cell densities of 1.6–4.0 × 109 have been obtained in 20 days while total angiostatin-human IgG production of 228–388 mg have been harvested. In general, low BH will minimize the nutrient limitation and favor the cell growth, while high BH will restrict the nutrient and promote the production in this type of non-growth associated production systems. It was found that specific production rate was generally inversely proportional to the specific growth rate. In this case of study, BH of 30 and 60 min were found to be about 72% better than BH of 1.5 min and 35% better than BH of 9 and 90 min in term of the total angiostatin-human IgG production. In comparison to a conventional spinner flask study, a 3.8-fold increase of the total angiostatin-human IgG production was realized in a 35-day culture. This study illustrated that a simple method of using BH in a semi-batch process can effectively control the apparent nutrient concentration to the cells, and thus regulate the cell growth and protein production in a novel oscillating bioreactor.