Impact of Microscale and Pilot-Scale Freeze-Drying on Protein Secondary Structures: Sucrose Formulations of Lysozyme and Catalase.

Microscale (MS) freeze-drying offers rapid process cycles for early-stage formulation development. The effects of the MS approach on the secondary structures of two model proteins, lysozyme and catalase, were compared with pilot-scale (PS) vial freeze-drying. The secondary structures were assessed by attenuated total reflection Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy. Formulations were made with increasing sucrose-protein ratios. Freeze-drying protocols involved regular cooling without thermal treatment and annealing with MS and PS equipment, and cooling rate variations with the MS. Principal component analysis of smoothed second-derivative amide I spectra revealed sucrose-protein ratio-dependent shifts toward α-helical structures. Transferability of sucrose-protein formulations from MS to PS vial freeze-drying was evidenced at regular cooling rates. Local differences in protein secondary structures between the bottom and top of sucrose-catalase samples could be detected at the sucrose-catalase ratios of 1 and 2, this being related to the initial filling height and ice crystal morphology. Annealing revealed temperature, protein, formulation, and sample location-dependent effects influencing surface morphology at the top, or causing protein secondary structure perturbation at the bottom. With the MS approach, protein secondary structure differences at different cooling rates could be detected for sucrose-lysozyme samples at the sucrose-lysozyme ratio of 1.