C-terminal lysine variants are commonly observed in monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and found sensitive to process conditions, especially specific components in culture medium. The potential roles of media arginine (Arg) and lysine (Lys) in mAb heavy chain C-terminal lysine processing were investigated by monitoring the lysine variant levels under various Arg and Lys concentrations. Both Arg and Lys were found to significantly affect lysine variant level. Specifically, lysine variant level increased from 18.7 to 31.8 % when Arg and Lys concentrations were increased from 2 to 10 mM. Since heterogeneity of C-terminal lysine residues is due to the varying degree of proteolysis by basic carboxypeptidases (Cps), enzyme (basic Cps) level, pH conditions, and product (Arg and Lys) inhibition, which potentially affect the enzymatic reaction, were investigated under various Arg and Lys conditions. Enzyme level and pH conditions were found not to account for the different lysine variant levels, which was evident from the minimal variation in transcription level and intracellular pH. On the other hand, product inhibition effect of Arg and Lys on basic Cps was evident from the notable intracellular and extracellular Arg and Lys concentrations comparable with Ki values (inhibition constant) of basic Cps and further confirmed by cell-free assays. Additionally, a kinetic study of lysine variant level during the cell culture process enabled further characterization of the C-terminal lysine processing.

Culture temperature exhibits noticeable impact on antibody charge variation distribution, especially the acidic variants and lysine variants.

Background: Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are still a major health threats worldwide.Traditional surveillance methods involving manual surveillance by infection control practitioners (ICPs) for data collection processes are laborious, inefficient, and generate data of variable quality. In this study, we sought to evaluate the impact of surveillance and interaction platform system (SIPS) for HAIs surveillance compared to manual survey in tertiary general hospitals.Methods: A large multi-center study including 21 tertiary general hospitals and 63 wards were performed to evaluate the impact of electronic SIPS for HAIs.Results: We collected 4,098 consecutive patients and found that the hospitals installed with SIPS significantly increased work efficiency of ICPs achieving satisfactory diagnostic performance of HAIs with Chen et al. SIPS and HAIs

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Charge variation is one of the most important heterogeneities during monoclonal antibody (mAb) manufacturing and this study presents insights into the generation of acidic charge variants during cell culture processes. Since acidic variants generate both intracellularly and extracellularly, main charge fraction collected by weak cation exchange chromatography (WCX) was incubated in harvested cell supernatant (HCS) to simulate and investigate the extracellular process firstly. It is found that the main fraction was degraded rapidly into acidic variants rather than basic variants extracellularly, and the degradation sites were located in both Fab and Fc fragments indicated by papain digestion. Besides, certain process parameters were investigated as their potential roles in the extracellular process. As a result, media composition showed significant influence on degradation while culture time point did not, suggesting that the extracellular process was a spontaneous process without enzyme catalysis. Additionally, kinetics study reveals that the extracellular process was a pseudo first-order reaction. The E value (21.59 kcal/mol) estimated from the Arrhenius equation suggests that the extracellular degradation might be mainly attributed to asparagine deamidation. Furthermore, we established an acidic variants generation model, indicating that the extracellular process plays a dominant role in modulating the final acidic variant level. This study provides better understanding for controlling product heterogeneity in mAb manufacturing.

Taurine exhibits noticeable impact on lower basic charge variants, which are mainly due to the decrease of lysine variant and oxidized protein variants.