Determination of Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell densities and antibody titers from small volumes of cell culture supernatants using multivariate analysis and partial least squares regression of UV-Vis spectra

Antibody titer and viable cell density (VCD) are two important parameters that need to be closely monitored during the process of cell line development and manufacturing of therapeutic antibodies. Typically, determination of each parameter requires 10-100 mu L of supernatant sample, which is not suitable for small scale cultivation. In this study, we demonstrated that as low as 2 mu L of culture supernatants were sufficient for the analysis using UV-Vis spectrum assisted with partial least squares (PLS) model. The results indicated that the optimal PLS models could be used to predict antibody titer and VCD with the linear relationship between reference values and predicted values at R-2 values ranging from 0.8 to > 0.9 in supernatant samples obtained from four different single clones and in polyclones that were cultured in various selection stringencies. Then, the percentage of cell viability and productivity were predicted from a set of samples of polyclones. The results indicated that while all predicted % cell viability were very similar to the actual value at RSEP value of 6.7 and R-2 of 0.8908, the predicted productivity from 14 of 18 samples were closed to the reference measurements at RSEP value of 22.4 and R-2 of 0.8522. These results indicated that UV-Vis combined with PLS has potential to be used for monitoring antibody titer, VCD, and % cell viability for both online and off-line therapeutic production process.

Automated summary

The study demonstrated that UV-Vis combined with PLS models can accurately predict antibody titer, VCD, and cell viability, providing a more efficient monitoring method for small scale cultivation.