Application of a curated genome-scale metabolic model of CHO DG44 to an industrial fed-batch process

This study is the first adaptation of a genome scale model for CHO cells to an industrial process, that successfully predicted cell phenotype. The tailored model predicted accurately both the exometabolomics data (r2 ≥ 0.8 for 96% of the considered metabolites) and growth rate (r2 = 0.91) of the industrial cell line. Flux distributions at different days of the process were analyzed for validation and suggestion of strategies for medium optimization. This study shows how to adapt a genome scale model to an industrial process and sheds light on the metabolic specificities of a high production process. The curated genome scale model is a great tool to gain insights into intracellular fluxes and to identify possible bottlenecks impacting cell performances during production process. The general use of genome scale models for modeling industrial recombinant cell lines is a long-term investment that will highly benefit process development and speed up time to market.