There is a high demand for the production of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) with high titers and desirable protein quality profiles in the biopharmaceutical industry. CHO cells have traditionally been the go-to cell lines to produce these mAbs, however achieving these attributes can be challenging. While cell line engineering and process engineering can be time-consuming, techniques such as the modification of media, media supplements, and feeding optimization can be quick solutions to achieving higher titers. To boost your productivity when producing mAbs, introducing peptone supplementation into your process may provide a faster solution to attain these desired attributes.
An alternative to serum, peptones can offer essential nutrients shown to increase performance and production. From fortifying cell culture medium and improving cultivation, to enhancing the performance of your workflow and reducing time to market, utilizing peptones can be beneficial for your biopharmaceutical production process.
At Thermo Fisher Scientific, we offer a range of Gibco animal origin-free (AOF) peptones to streamline your production process. A recent study by our team explored the productivity benefits of peptone supplements in both batch and fed-batch processes. Using five of our Gibco AOF peptones in two different CHO cell lines, our team found the data strongly demonstrated that the use of peptones can improve mAb titers, in particular with the use of our Gibco™ Wheat Peptone 100 and our Gibco™ Cotton Peptone 200 UF. When used together with our Gibco™ Efficient-Pro™ medium and Gibco™ Efficient-Pro™ Feed 1, these two supplements showed increases in titers of 44.15% and 34.03% respectively. It was also found that adding peptones to the culture more than once–in this example peptones were added at day 0 and day 8–increased titers further when used with Gibco™ Efficient-Pro™ Feed 1. While important to remember that these results can vary based on the cell line, basal medium, or feeding strategy used (and therefore optimization is crucial), the data presented strongly demonstrated the benefits of adding peptones to increase titers while maintaining viable cell density.
For more insight into this study and how peptones can help you boost productivity in your process, take a look at the poster produced by the team below.
Key learnings
- Peptones are protein hydrolysates that are nutritionally rich, making them ideal for increasing performance and productivity, and reducing your time to market.
- Thermo Fisher Scientific offers a range of Gibco peptone solutions to help improve your CHO process productivity by increasing mAb titers.
- In a recent study, Gibco peptone supplements strongly demonstrated improvements in viable cell densities, viability, and mAb titers.
- When used in both batch and fed-batch processes across different CHO cell lines, Gibco Wheat Peptone 100 and Gibco Cotton Peptone 200 UF strongly demonstrated an increase in mAb titers, at an increase of 44.15% and 34.03% respectively.
- Supplementing a culture with peptones initially followed by a second addition at day 8 was shown to further boost mAb titers when using Gibco Efficient-Pro Feed 1.