Abstract
Antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) is dependent on the fucose content of oligosaccharides bound to monoclonal antibodies (MAbs). As MAbs with a low fucose content exhibit high ADCC activity, it is important to control the defucosylation levels (deFuc%) of MAbs and to analyze the factors that affect deFuc%. In this study, we observed that the deFuc% was inversely related to culture medium osmolality for MAbs produced in the rat hybridoma cell line YB2/0, with r 2 values as high as 0.92. Moreover, deFuc% exhibited the same correlation irrespective of the type of compound used for regulating osmolality (NaCl, KCl, fucose, fructose, creatine, or mannitol) at a culture scale ranging from 1 to 400 L. We succeeded in controlling MAb deFuc% by maintaining a constant medium osmolality in both perfusion and fed-batch cultures. In agreement with these observations, reverse transcription PCR analyses revealed decreased transcription of genes involved in glycolysis, GDP-fucose supply, and fucose transfer under hypoosmotic conditions.
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Abbreviations
- ADCC:
-
Antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity
- CHO:
-
Chinese hamster ovary
- dCO2 :
-
Dissolved carbon dioxide
- deFuc:
-
Defucosylation levels, the extent with which the GlcNAc residue at the reducing terminal is free from glycosylation with fucose
- DOE:
-
Design of experiment
- Fut8 :
-
Alpha-1,6-fucosyltransferase gene
- GMD :
-
GDP-mannose 4,6-dehydratase gene
- GlcNAc:
-
N-acetylglucosamine
- MAbs:
-
Monoclonal antibodies
- QbD:
-
Quality by design
- RT-PCR:
-
Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction
- SPR:
-
Specific MAb production rate (pg cells−1 d−1)
- vvd:
-
Volume of fresh medium per working volume of reactor per day
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Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Mr. Yuya Kawagoe, Mr. Kazutoshi Maki, Mr. Noriyuki Takahashi, and Ms. Chigusa Hijikata for their expert analyses. We also thank Dr. Mitsuo Sato, Dr. Jun Yamaya, Dr. Kazuhisa Uchida, and Mr. Hiroshi Takasugi for their helpful discussions and encouragement.
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Konno, Y., Kobayashi, Y., Takahashi, K. et al. Fucose content of monoclonal antibodies can be controlled by culture medium osmolality for high antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity. Cytotechnology 64, 249–265 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10616-011-9377-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10616-011-9377-2