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PEGylated protein purification with the required quality attributes has represented a bioengineering challenge and Affinity Monolith Chromatography (AMC) has never been exploited for this goal. This work reports the generation of a heparin-modified affinity monolith disk by reductive alkylation with raised ligand density for its use as chromatographic support in the separation of lysozyme PEGylation reactions (LPRs) with three different PEG sizes (1, 20 and 40 kDa). For immobilized heparin determination a modified toluidine colorimetric assay adapted to microplate format was proposed. The heparin modified-disk was able to differentiate positional isomers of 20 kDa mono-PEGylated lysozyme at neutral pH using a salt linear gradient. Identity of PEG-conjugates was verified by SDS-PAGE and positional isomers were partially characterized by peptide mapping mass spectrometry. 20 kDa mono-PEGylated lysozyme conjugate purity (99.69 ± 0.05%) was comparable with traditional chromatographic methods while productivity (0.0964 ± 0.0001 mg/mL*min) was increased up to 6.1 times compared to that obtained in heparin packed-bed affinity chromatography procedures. The proposed AMC method represents a reliable, efficient, easy-handling, fast and single-step operation for the analysis or preparative isolation of PEGylated proteins containing a heparin binding domain.

The development of biotherapeutics requires continuous improvement in analytical methodologies for the assessment of their quality attributes. A subset of biotherapeutics is designed to interact with specific antigens that are exposed on the membranes of target cells or circulating in a soluble form, and effector functions are achieved via recognition of their Fc region by effector cells that induce mechanisms such as antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC). Thus, ADCC induction is a critical quality attribute (CQA) that must be evaluated to ensure biotherapeutic efficacy. Induction of ADCC can be evaluated by employing effector cells from different sources, such as peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) and genetically modified cell lines (e.g., transfected NKs or Jurkat cells), and different approaches can be used for detection and results interpretation depending on the type of effector cells used. In this regard, validation of the assays is relevant to ensure the reliability of the results according to the intended purpose. Herein, we show the standardization and validation of ADCC assays to test the potency of three biotherapeutic proteins using primary NK cells obtained from fresh blood as effector cells and detecting cell death by flow cytometry. The advantage of using primary NKs instead of modified cells is that the response is closer to that occurring in vivo since cytotoxicity is evaluated in a direct manner. Our results indicate that in all cases, the assays exhibited a characteristic sigmoidal dose/response curve complying with accurate, precise and specific parameters. Thereby, the validated ADCC assay is an appropriate alternative to evaluate the biological activities of these type of biotherapeutics.

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the second most frequently diagnosed cancer in men worldwide. Dialyzed Leukocyte Extracts (DLEs) are heterogeneous mixtures of low-molecular-weight peptides that improve clinical responses in various diseases. Here, we analyzed the effects of TransferonTM, a commercial DLE with characterized active pharmaceutical ingredient and proven batch-to-batch reproducibility, in preclinical models of PCa. We employed v-Src-transformed murine prostate epithelial (PEC-Src) cells, which recapitulate the transcriptional profiles in human PCa, can be grown in immunocompetent mice, and consistently form bone and brain metastases. In vitro, TransferonTM did not induce cytotoxicity nor alterations in migration /invasion of PEC-Src cells. In vivo, TransferonTM reduced metastatic dissemination after intracardiac injection of PEC-Src and inhibited tumor growth of subcutaneous isotransplants. The antineoplastic effect of TransferonTM correlated with changes in tumor infiltration, increased serum concentrations of IL-12 and CXCL1, and reduced levels of VEGF. Our results suggest that the antineoplastic effect produced by TransferonTM is due to its immunomodulatory activity and not by a direct effect on cancer cells, and indicate that TransferonTM could be beneficial as adjuvant therapy in PCa patients.

Complex pharmaceuticals are in demand of competent analytical methods able to analyze charge heterogeneity as a critical quality attribute (CQA), in compliance with current regulatory expectations. A notorious example is glatiramer acetate (GA), a complex polypeptide mixture useful for the treatment of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. This pharmaceutical challenges the current state of analytical technology in terms of the capacity to study their constituent species. Thus, a strong cation exchange methodology was designed under the lifecycle approach to support the establishment of GA identity, trough the evaluation of its chromatographic profile, which acts as a charge heterogeneity fingerprint. In this regard, a maximum relative margin of error of 5% for relative retention time and symmetry factor were proposed for the analytical target profile. The methodology met the proposed requirements after precision and specificity tests results, the former comprised of sensitivity and selectivity. Subsequently, method validation was conducted and showed that the method is able to differentiate between intact GA and heterogeneity profiles coming from stressed, fractioned or process-modified samples. In summary, these results provide evidence that the method is adequate to assess charge heterogeneity as a CQA of this complex pharmaceutical.

The function of proteins, such as the catalytic enzyme activity, depends on the interaction of their active sites with their specific substrates and the environment conditions that affect the stability of those sites. This study presents a structure-to-function characterization of the folding process of a recombinant 6×-His tag leucine aminopeptidase (rLAP) based on a platform of analytical techniques. The results demonstrated an increase up to 31 U/mg in the activity of the enzyme after folding as revealed by circular dichroism, intrinsic fluorescence, differential scanning calorimetry, and free thiol analysis. Collectively, these techniques revealed a larger number of covalent and non-covalent bonds within the protein seen as an increase in the chemical and thermal stability, while exhibited a lower level of non-bonded cysteines after the protein was folded. Mass spectrometry analysis showed the maintenance of the distribution of the enzyme isoforms related to N-terminal histidine residues after folding, which confirmed that the enzymatic activity of rLAP depends on its three-dimensional structure rather than N-terminal self-processing activity. In summary, the studied attributes allow a better understanding of the structure-to-function relationship of rLAP, that permit a more proficient manufacturing of the enzyme that would improve the bioprocesses in which is employed.

Leucine aminopeptidase from Vibrio proteolyticus is a broad specificity N-terminal aminopeptidase that is widely used in pharmaceutical processes where the removal of N-terminal residues in recombinant proteins is required. We previously reported the expression of a heterologous construction of the mature protein fused to a 6-histidine tag that presents a reasonable refolding rate for its use at industrial level. Here, we investigate this recombinant leucine aminopeptidase ( r LAP) to explain the gain of activity observed when incubated at 37 °C after its production. Unfolding transitions of r LAP as a function of urea concentration were monitored by circular dichroism (CD) and fluorescence (FL) spectroscopy exhibiting single transitions by both techniques. Free energy change for unfolding measured by CD and FL spectroscopy are 2.8 ± 0.4 and 3.7 ± 0.4 kcal mol −1 , respectively. Thermal stability conformation of r LAP is 2.6 ± 0.1 and 6.1 kcal mol −1 for CD and Nano-Differential Scanning Calorimetry (Nano-DSC), respectively. Enzyme activity was assessed with l -leucine- p -nitroanilide (L- p NA) as substrate. The catalytic efficiency was 3.87 ± 0.10 min −1 μM −1 at 37 °C and pH 8.0. Kinetic and conformation studies show differences between the enzyme native and r LAP; however r LAP is selective and specific to remove N-terminal groups from amino acids.

Highlights • The HEK-Blue IFN-α/β system was validated to comply international guidelines. • This system complied in accuracy, precision, specificity and, system suitability. • The validated system showed robustness to evaluate different commercial type I IFN. • This bioassay could be a complementary method to evaluate type I IFN activity. • The system met the validation criteria to be used in pharmaceutical environments., The biotherapeutic type I interferons (IFN-I) are indicated to treat several diseases. These products are regulated to guarantee safety and efficacy through critical quality attributes. For this purpose, the development of robust assays is required, followed by its validation to demonstrate their suitability for its intended purpose. Despite there are some commercial kits to evaluate IFN-I signaling, these are focused on measuring in vitro biological response instead of their validation, which is a pharmaceutical industry requirement. The aim of this work was to validate the HEK-Blue IFN-α/β system evaluating the biological activity of IFN-α/β under good laboratory practices, according to international standards. Our results demonstrated that HEK-Blue IFN-α/β system comply with accuracy (r2>0.95) precision (CV

Leucine aminopeptidase from Vibrio proteolyticus (LAP) is used to remove N-terminal methionine from recombinant therapeutic proteins in biotechnology processes. The native enzyme is efficient for this purpose, but it contains proteins and endotoxins from V. proteolyticus that need to be removed in the manufacturing process and quantified as contaminants of the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API). In this study, a synthetic gene was designed to encode a mature and active 32 kDa LAP and thus avoid the post-translational processing of the 54 kDa pro-protein. A 6×-histidine tag was fused to the N-terminus to facilitate purification of the recombinant LAP (rLAP) by immobilized-metal ion-affinity chromatography (IMAC). An active enzyme with purity above 95% was obtained; it is able to remove the N-terminal methionine from recombinant human methionine-interferon alpha-2b (met-rhIFN α-2b), giving a primary structure identical to the human one. Therefore, rLAP can be used as a biologically active therapeutic protein. In addition, a kinetic characterization of rLAP was performed. The kinetic parameters V max , k m and k cat were 93.62 μM h −1 , 27.26 μM and 3.07 h −1 , respectively. Thus, this work provides an rLAP that can be used in industrial processes for N-terminal methionine excision (NME) from such recombinant products as interferon α-2b, human growth hormone and granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor.

Interferon-alpha 2b (IFN-alpha 2b) is a recombinant therapeutic cytokine produced as inclusion bodies using a strain of Escherichia coli as expression system. After fermentation and recovery, it is necessary to know the amount of recombinant IFN-alpha 2b, in order to determine the yield and the load for solubilization, and chromatographic protein purification steps. The present work details the validation of a new short run-time and fast sample-preparation method to quantify IFN-alpha 2b in inclusion bodies using Reversed Phase-Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography (RP-UPLC). The developed method demonstrated an accuracy of 100.28%; the relative standard deviations for method precision, repeatability and inter-day precision tests were found to be 0.57%, 1.54% and 1.83%, respectively. Linearity of the method was assessed in the range of concentrations from 0.05 mg/mL to 0.5 mg/mL, the curve obtained had a determination coefficient (r(2)) of 0.9989. Detection and quantification limits were found to be 0.008 mg/mL and 0.025 mg/mL, respectively. The method also demonstrated robustness for changes in column temperature, and specificity against host proteins and other recombinant protein expressed in the same E. coli strain.

Cheese whey (CW) is the major subproduct from cheese manufacturing and it is considered as a waste pollutant since its high content of lactose. In this work a fermentation process for the production of penicillin acylase (PA) by a recombinant Escherichia coli and using CW as unique carbon source and inducer was developed. A design factorial 3(2) was used to evaluate the influence of independent variables (dissolved oxygen and CW concentration) on the ability of E. coli W3110/pPA102 to produce PA. Maximum specific PA activity of 781 U g(-1) was attained at 5 g L(-1) of CW and 3% dissolved oxygen. The results showed that CW can be used successfully as unique carbon source and inducer for the production of recombinant proteins using constructions driven by the lac promoter and this way reducing the discharges of that pollutant to the environment.