Quantification of residual AEBSF-related impurities by reversed-phase liquid chromatography.

During research of a broadly neutralizing antibody (bNAb) for HIV-1 infection, site-specific clipping was observed during cell culture incubation. Protease inhibitor, 4-(2-aminoethyl) benzenesulfonyl fluoride (AEBSF), was supplemented to the cell culture feeding to mitigate clipping as one of the control strategies. It led to the need and development of a new assay to monitor the free AEBSF-related impurities during the purification process.

Demonstrating β-glucan and yeast peptide clearance in biopharmaceutical downstream processes.

The use of yeast- and plant-derived hydrolysates in cell culture production processes has sparked concerns over the potential immunogenicity risk posed by β-glucans and yeast peptides contained in these raw materials. This article utilizes a combination of in-process testing from large-scale manufacturing and scale-down spiking studies to demonstrate the clearance of β-glucans and yeast peptides through chromatographic steps in the downstream purification process for a monoclonal antibody. β-Glucans were found to flow through most all three modes of chromatography (Protein A, cation and anion exchange) without binding to the resins or the product.

A simple reversed phase high-performance liquid chromatography method for polysorbate 80 quantitation in monoclonal antibody drug products.

In this paper, we discuss an improved high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method for the quantitation of polysorbate 80 (polyoxyethylenesorbitan monooleate), a commonly used stabilizing excipient in therapeutic drug solutions. This method is performed by quantitation of oleic acid, a hydrolysis product of polysorbate 80. Using base hydrolysis, polysorbate 80 releases the oleic acid at a 1:1 molar ratio.

Identification and measurement of isoaspartic acid formation in the complementarity determining region of a fully human monoclonal antibody.

Isomerization plays a key role in protein degradation. This isomerization is often difficult to detect by many protein characterization methods such as SDS-PAGE, SEC, and IEF. This work shows the identification of an isomerized aspartic acid residue in the CDR2 of the heavy chain of a fully human monoclonal antibody.

Isomerization in the CDR2 of a monoclonal antibody: Binding analysis and factors that influence the isomerization rate.

Isomerization of a monoclonal antibody is one of the common routes of protein degradation. An isomerization in the complementarity-determining region (CDR) was found previously and is investigated in depth in this work. Affinity analysis proves that the antibody with one isomerized heavy chain has lower binding.

Investigation of proteins and peptides from yeastolate and subsequent impurity testing of drug product.

Hydrolysates play an important role in modern biological production. These mixtures are mostly undefined and contain a mixture of proteins, peptides, and amino acids along with other non-amino acid-based components. Recently, there has been an interest in defining and sequencing proteins and peptides in these hydrolysates to subsequently develop an assay to ensure removal during product purification.

Peptide mapping of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies: improvements for increased speed and fewer artifacts.

Peptide mapping is a widely utilized technique to characterize monoclonal antibodies for the purpose of product identity and is becoming increasing important as a stability indicating assay. Many conventional peptide-mapping methods are extremely time consuming and yield a map that is wrought with processing artifact peaks such as deamidation, carbamylation, and missed cleavages. Therefore, this work examines the many common individual sample preparation steps of the peptide-mapping procedure for monoclonal antibodies including the steps of denaturing, reduction, sample cleanup, digestion, and HPLC solvent selection.

Evaluation of oligosaccharide methods for carbohydrate analysis in a fully human monoclonal antibody and comparison of the results to the monosaccharide composition determination by a novel calculation.

Carbohydrates can change a drug's properties including solubility, affinity towards antigen, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics. Due to this importance, carbohydrate composition is utilized as a parameter to evaluate a drug candidate's quality. In this study, the compositional monosaccharides of a drug candidate are measured by HPAEC-PAD, while the oligosaccharides are studied by HPAEC-PAD, CE-LIF and LC-MS.

A quantitative human monoclonal antibody immunoassay using anti-idiotypic antibody as a membrane antigen surrogate with surface-plasmon-resonance detection.

Biologically active membrane proteins are difficult to isolate. Very often the isolated membrane proteins have low binding affinity or no biological integrity at all. Despite some success in isolation, one has to overcome the hurdles of obtaining sufficient quantity of the proteins and maintaining biological activity upon coating them on surfaces for developing an ELISA.

C-terminal lysine variants in fully human monoclonal antibodies: investigation of test methods and possible causes.

The C-terminal lysine variation is commonly observed in biopharmaceutical monoclonal antibodies. This modification can be important since it is found to be sensitive to the production process. The methods commonly used to probe this charge variation, including IEF, cIEF, ion-exchange chromatography, and LC-MS, were evaluated for their ability to effectively approximate relative percentages of lysine variants.

Determination of the origin of the N-terminal pyro-glutamate variation in monoclonal antibodies using model peptides.

The purpose of this work is to determine the cause of the cyclization of the N-terminal glutamine in recombinant proteins and monoclonal antibodies. This cyclization reaction commonly occurs on the N-terminal of light and/or heavy chains of antibodies and leads to heterogeneity of the final product. Two model peptides and an antibody containing an N-terminal glutamine were used to investigate the formation of N-terminal pyro- glutamic acid under various experimental conditions and different stages of the biosynthetic process.