Stephane Lanthier

Development of a scalable process for high-yield lentiviral vector production by transient transfection of HEK293 suspension cultures

Lentiviral vectors (LV) offer several advantages over other gene delivery vectors. Their potential for the integration and long‐term expression of therapeutic genes renders them an interesting tool for gene and cell therapy interventions. However, large‐scale LV production remains an important challenge for the translation of LV‐based therapeutic strategies to the clinic. The development of robust processes for mass production of LV is needed.

Use of the Centritech Lab centrifuge for perfusion culture of hybridoma cells in protein-free medium

As part of an effort to develop a suspension‐culture perfusion‐based process with high flow rate without the fouling and antibody retention inherent to filter‐based cell‐separation devices, we have evaluated and contributed to the development of the Centritech Lab centrifuge for the perfusion culture of hybridoma cells in protein‐free medium. Culture start‐ups showed that cell growth and monoclonal‐antibody (MAb) production rates were similar in both a spinner flask and continuous centrifugation coupled to a bioreactor. The centrifuge efficiently separated viable cells from dead ones. Viable‐cell recoveries were never below 98%, whereas dead‐cell recoveries were usually around 80%. The cell content of the centrifuge supernatant and concentrate was strongly determined by the total amount of cells, viable and dead, in the culture broth, but an influence of the centrifugation parameters (feed rate, times of separation and discharge, and rotor speed) was observed. This understanding of the separation process inside the centrifuge is important and may apply to other similar devices. Monoclonal antibodies were not retained in the bioreactor during centrifugation perfusion. However, whereas similar growth rates were obtained in perfusion cultures using either continuous centrifugation or filtration, MAb concentrations were 35% lower in the former case. Utilization of the centrifuge in an intermittent fashion decreased the daily cell residence time outside the bioreactor, the daily pelleted‐cell residence time in the centrifuge, and the frequency of cell passage to the centrifuge. This led to higher viable‐cell numbers in the bioreactor and an accompanying increase in MAb concentrations, 225–250 mg of IgM L−1, equal to the performance of filter‐based perfusion systems with the same cell line. It was hypothesized that having cells periodically packed at the bottom of the centrifuge insert (up to 800 × 106 cells mL−1) is deleterious to the culture by exposing the pelleted cells to prolonged nutrient limitations.

Understanding factors that limit the productivity of suspension‐based perfusion cultures operated at high medium renewal rates

One of the key parameters in perfusion culture is the rate of medium replacement (D). Intensifying D results in enhanced provision of nutrients, which can lead to an increase in the viable cell density (X(v)). The daily MAb production of hybridoma cells can thus be increased proportionally without modifying the bioreactor scale, provided that both viable cell yield per perfusion rate (Y(Xv/D)) and specific MAb productivity (q(MAb)) remain constant at higher D. To identify factors prone to limit productivity in perfusion, a detailed kinetic analysis was carried out on a series of cultures operated within a D range of 0.48/4.34 vvd (volumes of medium/reactor volume/day) in two different suspension-based systems. In the Celligen/vortex-flow filter system, significant reductions in Y(Xv/D) and q(MAb) resulting from the use of gas sparging were observed at D > 1.57 vvd (X(v) > 15 x 10(6) cells/mL). Through glucose supplementation, we have shown that the decrease in Y(Xv/D) encountered in presence of sparging was not resulting from increased cellular destruction or reduced cell growth, but rather from glucose limitation. Thus, increases in hydrodynamic shear stress imparted to the culture via intensification of gas sparging resulted in a gradual increase in specific glucose consumption (q(glc)) and lactate production rates (q(lac)), while no variations were observed in glutamine-consumption rates. As a result, while glutamine was the sole limiting-nutrient under non-sparging conditions, both glutamine and glucose became limiting under sparging conditions. Although a reduction in q(MAb) was observed at high-sparging rates, inhibition of MAb synthesis did not result from direct impact of bubbles, but was rather associated with elevated lactate levels (25-30 mM), resulting from shear stress-induced increases in q(lac), q(glc), and Y(lac/glc). Deleterious effects of sparging on Y(Xv/D) and q(MAb) encountered in the Celligen/vortex-flow filter system were eliminated in the sparging-free low-shear environment of the Chemap-HRI/ultrasonic filter system, allowing for the maintenance of up to 37 x 10(6) viable cells/mL. A strategy aimed at reducing requirements for sparging in large-scale perfusion cultures by way of a reduction in the oxygen demand using cellular engineering is discussed.

Metabolic and Kinetic analyses of influenza production in perfusion HEK293 cell culture

BackgroundCell culture-based production of influenza vaccine remains an attractive alternative to egg-based production. Short response time and high production yields are the key success factors for the broader adoption of cell culture technology for industrial manufacturing of pandemic and seasonal influenza vaccines. Recently, HEK293SF cells have been successfully used to produce influenza viruses, achieving hemagglutinin (HA) and infectious viral particle (IVP) titers in the highest ranges reported to date. In the same study, it was suggested that beyond 4 × 106 cells/mL, viral production was limited by a lack of nutrients or an accumulation of toxic products.ResultsTo further improve viral titers at high cell densities, perfusion culture mode was evaluated. Productivities of both perfusion and batch culture modes were compared at an infection cell density of 6 × 106 cells/mL. The metabolism, including glycolysis, glutaminolysis and amino acids utilization as well as physiological indicators such as viability and apoptosis were extensively documented for the two modes of culture before and after viral infection to identify potential metabolic limitations. A 3 L bioreactor with a perfusion rate of 0.5 vol/day allowed us to reach maximal titers of 3.3 × 1011 IVP/mL and 4.0 logHA units/mL, corresponding to a total production of 1.0 × 1015 IVP and 7.8 logHA units after 3 days post-infection. Overall, perfusion mode titers were higher by almost one order of magnitude over the batch culture mode of production. This improvement was associated with an activation of the cell metabolism as seen by a 1.5-fold and 4-fold higher consumption rates of glucose and glutamine respectively. A shift in the viral production kinetics was also observed leading to an accumulation of more viable cells with a higher specific production and causing an increase in the total volumetric production of infectious influenza particles.ConclusionsThese results confirm that the HEK293SF cell is an excellent substrate for high yield production of influenza virus. Furthermore, there is great potential in further improving the production yields through better control of the cell culture environment and viral production kinetics. Once accomplished, this cell line can be promoted as an industrial platform for cost-effective manufacturing of the influenza seasonal vaccine as well as for periods of peak demand during pandemics.

Process optimization and scale-up for production of rabies vaccine live adenovirus vector (AdRG1.3).

Rabies virus is an important causative agent of disease resulting in an acute infection of the nervous system and death. Although curable if treated in a timely manner, rabies remains a serious public health issue in developing countries, and the indigenous threat of rabies continues in developed countries because of wildlife reservoirs. Control of rabies in wildlife is still an important challenge for governmental authorities. There are a number of rabies vaccines commercially available for control of wildlife rabies infection. However, the vaccines currently distributed to wildlife do not effectively immunize all at-risk species, particularly skunks. A replication competent recombinant adenovirus expressing rabies glycoprotein (AdRG1.3) has shown the most promising results in laboratory trials. The adenovirus vectored vaccine is manufactured using HEK 293 cells. This study describes the successful scale-up of AdRG1.3 adenovirus production from 1 to 500 L and the manufacturing of large quantities of bulk material required for field trials to demonstrate efficacy of this new candidate vaccine. The production process was streamlined by eliminating a medium replacement step prior to infection and the culture titer was increased by over 2 fold through optimization of cell culture medium. These improvements produced a more robust and cost-effective process that facilitates industrialization and commercialization. Over 17,000 L of AdRG1.3 adenovirus cultures were manufactured to support extensive field trials. AdRG1.3 adenovirus is formulated and packaged into baits by Artemis Technologies Inc. using proprietary technology. Field trials of AdRG1.3 rabies vaccine baits have been conducted in several Canadian provinces including Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick. The results from field trials over the period 2006-2009 demonstrated superiority of the new vaccine over other licensed vaccines in immunizing wild animals that were previously difficult to vaccinate.

Optimization and scale-up of cell culture and purification processes for production of an adenovirus-vectored tuberculosis vaccine candidate.

Tuberculosis (TB) is the second leading cause of death by infectious disease worldwide. The only available TB vaccine is the Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG). However, parenterally administered Mycobacterium bovis BCG vaccine confers only limited immune protection from pulmonary tuberculosis in humans. There is a need for developing effective boosting vaccination strategies. AdAg85A, an adenoviral vector expressing the mycobacterial protein Ag85A, is a new tuberculosis vaccine candidate, and has shown promising results in pre-clinical studies and phase I trial. This adenovirus vectored vaccine is produced using HEK 293 cell culture. Here we report on the optimization of cell culture conditions, scale-up of production and purification of the AdAg85A at different scales. Four commercial serum-free media were evaluated under various conditions for supporting the growth of HEK293 cell and production of AdAg85A. A culturing strategy was employed to take advantages of two culture media with respective strengths in supporting the cell growth and virus production, which enabled to maintain virus productivity at higher cell densities and resulted in more than two folds of increases in culture titer. The production of AdAg85A was successfully scaled up and validated at 60L bioreactor under the optimal conditions. The AdAg85A generated from the 3L and 60L bioreactor runs was purified through several purification steps. More than 98% of total cellular proteins was removed, over 60% of viral particles was recovered after the purification process, and purity of AdAg85A was similar to that of the ATCC VR-1516 Ad5 standard. Vaccination of mice with the purified AdAg85A demonstrated a very good level of Ag85A-specific antibody responses. The optimized production and purification conditions were transferred to a GMP facility for manufacturing of AdAg85A for generation of clinical grade material to support clinical trials.

Process intensification for high yield production of influenza H1N1 Gag virus-like particles using an inducible HEK-293 stable cell line

Influenza virus dominant antigens presentation using virus like particle (VLP) approach is attractive for the development of new generation of influenza vaccines. Mammalian cell platform offers many advantages for VLP production. However, limited attention has been paid to the processing of mammalian cell produced VLPs. Better understanding of the production system could contribute to increasing the yields and making large-scale VLP vaccine manufacturing feasible. In a previous study, we have generated a human embryonic kidney HEK-293 inducible cell line expressing Hemagglutinin (HA) and Neuraminidase (NA), which was used to produce VLPs upon transient transfection with a plasmid containing HIV-1 Gag. In this work, to streamline the production process, we have developed a new HEK-293 inducible cell line adapted to suspension growth expressing the three proteins HA, NA (H1N1 A/PR/8/1934) and the Gag fused to GFP for monitoring the VLP production. The process was optimized to reach higher volumetric yield of VLPs by increasing the cell density at the time of induction without sacrificing the cell specific productivity. A 5-fold improvement was achieved by doing media evaluation at small scale. Furthermore, a 3-L perfusion bioreactor mirrored the performance of small-scale shake flask cultures with sequential medium replacement. The cell density was increased to 14×106 cells/ml at the time of induction which augmented by 60-fold the volumetric yield to 1.54×1010 Gag-GFP fluorescent events/ml, as measured by flow cytometry. The 9.5-L harvest from the perfusion bioreactor was concentrated by tangential flow filtration at low shear rate. The electron micrographs revealed the presence of VLPs of 100-150nm with the characteristic dense core of HIV-1 particles. The developed process shows the feasibility of producing high quantity of influenza VLPs from an inducible mammalian stable cell line aiming at large scale vaccine manufacturing.

292. Towards Large-Scale Manufacturing of Adeno-Associated Virus by Transient Transfection of HEK293 Suspension Cells in a Stirred Tank Bioreactor Using Serum-Free Medium

Adeno-Associated Virus (AAV) vectors showing safety profile in phase I clinical trials and its ability to transduce gene expression in various tissues have made it a vector of choice for gene delivery. There are different modes of AAV vector production and each has advantages and disadvantages. Here we demonstrated that the production of AAV by transient transfection in a serum-free medium using NRCs patented cGMP compliant human embryonic kidney HEK293 cell line (clone HEK293SF-3F6) adapted for growth in suspension can be readily scaled-up in stirred tank bioreactors. We employed triple-plasmid / polyethylenimine (PEI) based transient transfection technique. As a proof of concept, we demonstrated that nine serotypes of AAV (AAV-1 to AAV-9) encoding GFP can be produced by our cell line HEK293SF with yields of about 1E+13 genome-containing particles per liter (Vg/L). Depending on the serotypes 4-30% of AAV is present in the supernatant of the cell culture at 48hpt. The presence of plasmids and plasmid polyplexes that were not taken up by the cells or were not brought into the cell nucleus were removed by Iodixanol-ultracentrifugation method and Benzonase treatment before analyzing by real-time PCR. About 25% loss in genome containing viral particle counts were observed by Iodixanol purification method based on infectivity assay. Productions of AAV2 and AAV6 encoding GFP were demonstrated in 3L stirred tank bioreactors. Purification scheme was based on column chromatography - a scalable process. Different chromatography media, such as cation exchanger, anion exchanger and hydrophobic interaction chromatography, were tested with each AAV serotypes for their ability to adsorb and elute efficiently. The purification scheme was then adopted by integrating best chromatography medium and sequence dependent upon the AAV serotype in use. We demonstrated the purification scheme for AAV2 based on ion-exchange and hydrophobic interaction chromatography steps. The SDS-PAGE showed the purity of the final product and the presence of three capsid proteins VP1, VP2 and VP3 on Western blot corresponding to the only three bands present in the final product on SDS-PAGE. To extend the storage life of AAV we explored lyophilization technique to study the stability of AAV2 and AAV6 under lyophilized conditions. The AAV2 and AAV6 were stable for over 40 weeks based on infectivity assay. We demonstrated the scalability of the process up to 45L. Productions tested in 20 and 500 mL cultures in shake flasks were scaled up in 2 and 45L cultures (in 3- and 60-L stirred tank bioreactors, respectively). The volumetric yields and purification recoveries were comparable at all of these production scale levels demonstrating scalability of transient transfection at even larger scale is possible to generate material necessary for dosages required for gene therapy application.