Mass spectrometric glycoform profiling of the innovator and biosimilar erythropoietin and darbepoetin by LC/ESI-MS.

The recent patent expirations of erythropoietin (EPO) have promoted the development of biosimilars. Two and one biosimilar EPO products were approved in 2007 in Europe and in 2010 in Japan, respectively. Glycosylation heterogeneity of EPO is very complex, and its pattern has a large impact on its in vivo activity. In this study, glycoform profilings of biosimilar and innovator EPO products were performed using LC/ESI-MS. Glycoforms of EPO were detected within the range of m/z 1700-3600 at the 10(+)-16(+) charge states. The charge-deconvoluted spectra showed complex glycoform mass profiles at 28,000-32,000 Da, and most of the observed peaks were assigned to the peptide (18,236 Da)+glycans with the compositions of NeuAc10-14Hexn+3HexNAcnFuc3 (n=16-26) with or without some O-acetylations (+42 Da) and attachment of NeuGc for NeuAc or oxidation (+16 Da). Analysis of de-N-glycosylated EPO showed the distributions of O-glycans of NeuAc1-2Hex1HexNAc1 and site occupancy. Each EPO product showed a characteristic glycoform profile with respect to sialylation, glycan size, O-acetylation of sialic acids and O-glycosylation. Analysis of darbepoetin suggested that glycans of darbepoetin were highly sialylated and O-acetylated. LC/ESI-MS was shown to be useful to evaluate the similarity of the glycoform profiles of EPO.