Monday, November 9, 2009
P12

Development of an E. coli recombinant protein fermentation process

Clarissa J. Chui and Michael W. Laird. Late Stage Cell Culture Department, Genentech, Inc, 1 DNA Way, MS 32, South San Francisco, CA 94080

A high cell density E. coli fermentation process that produces a soluble recombinant protein was developed by combining the nutrient feeding strategies from two previously developed processes.  The two previous processes (Process A and Process B) were developed in parallel for the production of the recombinant protein at an earlier stage of the product lifecycle and were optimized for the specific production host.
Both processes produced soluble product with Process B consistently generating 1.5-fold more product than Process A.  Starting with Process B, the nutrient feeding strategy was optimized to yield Process C which resulted in a 2-fold increase in product compared to Process A.  The development of Process C, its reproducibility, scale-up and some minor challenges that were observed with this process will be discussed.