ARGININE-ENRICHED MEDIUM COMPOSITION USED FOR MASS- PRODUCING RECOMBINANT PROTEIN IN ANIMAL CELL CULTURE
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an arginine- enriched medium composition used for mass-producing recombinant protein in animal cell culture.
Particularly, the present invention relates to the arginine-enriched medium composition containing arginme by the concentration of 160-4200 mg/L which corresponds to 2-50 folds of the previously used medium.
BACKGROUND
It has been m progress actively study and industrialization which produces monoclonal antibody or therapeutic glycoprotein via mass culture of animal cell as a part of developing medicinal drugs m the field of biotechnology. As a result, it has been developed and marketed about 50 kinds of monoclonal antibodies, EPO and blood coagulating agent. In USA, it has been anticipated that the annual selling amount of biomedicmes derived from animal cells is on an increasing trend of over 15-20& yearly from three billions m 1993 to tourteen billions and five hundred
millions m 2003
Especially, m order to maintain the molecular structural stability and the high activity of glycoprotem after administration into the body, its glycosylation and post-transcπptional modification are important. However, since these processes are incomplete or do not perform in microorganisms, it is necessary to use the animal cells for producing the biologically active form of glycoprotem.
The representative glycoprotem recently used for the medical world is thrombopoietm (hereinafter, as referred to be λTPO' ) , erythropoietm (hereinafter, as referred to be ΛEPO' ) and so on. TPO, produced in liver or kidney, regulates the number of the platelet and is used for therapy of thrombocytopenia that occurs by cancer treatment, bone marrow transplantation or any other causes .
Particularly, megakaryocytic progenitor cells existed in the bone marrow cells, are destroyed by cancer treatment or in the procedure of bone marrow transplantation, the number of platelet decrease, and the thrombocytopenia occurs .
Throiϊioocytopenia is early induced bleeding by light external stimulus and without external stimulus m case of serious thrombocytopenia. Once bleeding is induced, it is difficult to stop, so thrombocytopenia
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becomes a serious problem causing deaths by severe bleeding .
As a method for treatment of the thrombocytopenia up to now, blood transfusion of the platelet is solely used. However, it has also problems that the donors of blood needed for platelet transfusion are lack, and the infection such as AIDS virus or hepatitis virus derived from blood and immune response according to foreign platelet transfusion occurs.
Platelet is a blood composition produced from megakaryocytic progenitor cells and has a function that inhibits bleeding. The number of platelet is regulated by TPO glycoprotem. TPO stimulates the proliferation and reproduction of megakaryocytic progenitor cells in bone marrow cell leading to the production of circulating platelets (Lok et al . , Na t ure, 369:565-568, 1994; De Savage et al . , Na t ure, 369:533-568, 1994).
After human thrombopoietm (hTPO) cDNA among TPO genes is cloned for the first time at 1994 (Lok et al . , Na t ure , 369:565-568, 1994; De Savage et al., Na turer 369:533-568, 1994; iyazaki et al . , Exp . Hema tol . , 22:838, 1994; WO 95/18858), hTPO is under clinical trials for treatment of thrombocytopenia by the property cf hTPO whιch regulates the numoer of platelet (Murray et d . , E . ->ema tol . , 26:207-216, 1998). From this, it has been the increasing need for mass-
production of TPO.
CHO cell among the animal cells is the most widely used host since it has advantages of the stable gene transfection, high productivity and rapid adaptability to serum free medium. Especially, CHO-DUKX cells with deletion of dhfr gene is able to use dhfr gene as a selection marker and increase the gene expression by gene amplification process via methothrexate (MTX) , and used for expression and production of various therapeutic proteins.
Cells are easily affected by external mechanical force since they only consist of plasma membrane m the absence of cell wall, and their growth and metabolic activity are seriously inhibited by a large amount of lactic acid generated by conversion of carbon and energy source during metabolism, and ammonia made form glutamme, which is supplied as energy source. Generally, since the cells which produce foreign protein by gene transfection needs more gene replication, transcription, and protein synthesis compared with the cell which is not so, its growth becomes slower and slower (Beutley et al . , Bi otecn . Bioeng . , 35:668, 1990) .
Especially, it has been reported that the more the productivity increases by amplification of gene which
expresses foreign protein by MTX, the more the growth rate decreases severely (Gu et al . , Cytotech . , 18:159, 1996) . In serious case, cell death occurs early m the cultivation by inhibiting the cell growth (Sigh et al . , Biotech , Bioeng. , 44:720, 1994).
As a result, the protein concentration produced by the cell is m the low level, and actually, we demonstrated that cell growth inhibition occurs during the batch culture of CHO cell lines that produce TPO and EPO antibody, respectively.
Since the cell growth inhibition is the major cause of low productivity, it is necessary to establish the optimal culture condition to prevent the growth inhibition, and it is the most important for optimizing the medium composition by increasing osmotic pressure of medium or adding sodium butyrate into the medium. These methods induce the increase of the expression rate of target protein, but they still have the disadvantage to reduce cell viability drastically.
As the nutrient reguirements for animal cell are very complex, it is essential for adding ammo acid and vitamin into the medium, and it also require serum containing many growth factors . These study about the medium composition have been performed mainly relation to the preparation of serum free medium. arious medium additives are developed to increase
the cell viability during serum free culture, and metabolic engineering approach is also under active research. Recently, the study of ammo acid role in relation to the programmed cell death hybridoma has been actively going on (Franek and Sramkova, Cytotech . , 23:231, 1997; Mercille and assie, Biotech . Bioeng. , 44:1140, 1994), and it has been made efforts to prevent the cell death by adding the various ammo acid complex or ammo acid analogues into the medium. Particularly, it has been reported in case of treating glutamme to CHO cell (Sanfeliu et al . Biotecnnol . Bioeng. , 64:46, 1996); glycme, alanme serme, threonme, proline, asparagme, glutamme histidme ( Franek and Sramkova, Cytotech . , 23:23, 1997) glutamme ( Franek, Biotech . Bi oeng . , 45:86, 1995) methion e (Perreault et al . , Cytotech . , 13:99, 1994) to hybridoma; and cysteme (Mercille et al . , Biotech . Bioeng. , 44:1140, 1994) to cancer cell.
However, there is no report that argm e-enriched medium induces the high-level production of the recombinant protein.
In the production process of TPO, the above- mentioned early cell growth inhibition is serious problem to the increase of productivity of the protein. In addition, it brings a severe problem to the development or cell line. Especially, since the cell
death frequently occurs during MTX treatment by the high concentration for gene amplification, it is difficult to maintain cell culture for cell line development .
To overcome these problems, the present inventors have studied the medium composition that can induce the high-level production of the recombinant protein with m animal cell culture.
As a result, the present inventors have found that life span and viability of cells are increased by adding 160-4200 mg/L of arginine to the medium, and the high-level production of recombinant protein can be accomplished therefrom.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of this invention to provide a medium composition which is used for mass-producing the recombinant protein via animal cell culture by preventing the early cell growth inhibition and increasing the cell viability.
In accordance with the present invention, the rorego g objects and advantages are readily obtained. The present invention provides the argin e-
enriched medium used for animal cell culture.
The 'arginine-enriched medium' in the present invention means the medium adding the high concentration of arginme to the basal medium.
The 'basal medium' means the well-known medium used for animal cell culture, and can be selected from the group of DMEM (Dulbecco's modified eagle's medium), MEM (minimum essential medium eagle), RPMI 1640 medium, medium 199, DMEM/F12, IMDM (Iscove's modified Dulbecco' s medium) , but is not restricted within the group. The well-known media for animal cell culture or their modified mediums are used for mass-producing the recombinant protein in the present invention.
Further features of the present invention will appear hereinafter.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 shows a cell growth state in the arginine- enriched medium composition of the present invention according to the argmine concentration, wherein
-• - ; basal IMDM (Iscove's modified Dulbecco's medium1 containing 84 mg/L of argmine; -I - ; IMDM containing 168 mg/L of argmine;
-▼ - ; IMDM containing 420 mg/L of argmine.
FIG. 2 shows a production rate of TPO the arginine-enriched medium composition of the present invention according to the concentration of argmme, wherein -• -; basal IMDM (Iscove's modified Dulbecco's medium) containing 84 mg/L of argmme;
-I -; IMDM containing 168 mg/L of argm e;
-▼ -; IMDM containing 420 mg/L of argmme.
FIG. 3 shows a viability of cell in the arginine- enriched medium composition of the present invention according to the concentration of argmme.
FIG. 4 shows a viability of cell represented by measuring the relative MTT value m the arginine- enriched medium composition that contains the other ammo acids except argmme in the concentration of 3 folds to the basal medium.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
Hereinafter, the present invention is described in detail .
In one aspect, the present invention provides the medium composition containing the high concentration of argmine for increasing the production rate of TPC recomoinant protein b\ preventing the early cell growth inhibition and increasing the maximum number of viable
cell on the animal cell culture for mass-producing the recombinant protein.
The medium composition of the present invention is prepared by adding a concentrated argmme solution in concentration of 160-4200 mg/L to the basal medium in concentration of 70-200 mg/L.
In a preferred embodiment, the present inventors examine the effects of various ammo acids and other nutrients for the production of recombinant protein m animal cell culture by adding them to the basal culture medium. As a result, it is found that argmme has an excellent effect for preventing the early cell growth inhibition beyond compared with the other ingredients. This result may be caused that the high concentration of argm e prevents the programmed cell death appeared in the production of recombinant protein by animal cell culture, or the added amount of argmme is enough for compensating the argmme consumption which is needed for the production of recombinant protein. In addition, since argmme has a high stability and solubility to the medium, shows no toxicity to cells and is relatively low in price, the argmme-enriched medium composition is very effective for cell culture process. The recombinant protein produced by using the medium composition of the present invention includes colon /-stimulating factor, blood factor, growth hormone,
interferon, enzyme protein, antibody and so on.
It is preferable to use the medium composition for the production of glycoprotein like TPO, EPO or blood coagulating agent, especially used for increasing the production rate of TPO.
The medium composition of the present invention is also used for animal cell culture which is widely used for the production of recombinant protein, and is preferable to use for culture of CHO, kidney cell derived from human, monkey, hamster such as BHK-21 (baby hamster kidney), Hela cell, NIH 3T3 cell, rat embryo fibroblast cell, and more preferable to use for culture of CHO dhfr mutant.
In another preferable embodiment of the present invention, the arginine-enriched medium composition is used for the production of TPO by culturing CHO DUKX Bll cell. The medium composition of the present invention can be prepared by adding the concentrated arginme solution to the general medium such as DMEM or MEM used for animal cell culture or the modified medium such as IMDM by the concentration of 160-4200 mg/L.
It is possible to regulate the proper concentration of argmme m the medium by adding the concentrated arg me solution. The more the medium contains argmme by the concentration between 2 folds and 5C folds, the more the number of viable cell
increases m proportion to the argmme concentration.
However, m case of exceeding 50 folds, it reaches the saturated concentration, and the number of viable cell does not increase any more. But, although the argmme concentration exceeds 50 folds, there is no toxicity to cells, and the osmotic pressure by argmme lonization is insignificant. In addition, as a result of comparing the absence of argmme with the presence of argmme, there is no difference in the consumption/release pattern of total ammo acid, glucose and lactate.
Namely, no remarkable physiological changes occurred in cells. Consequently, it is preferable to add argmme by the concentration of 2 to 50 folds in the side of critical concentration related to the argmme effect. When the relationship between the added amount of argmme and the argmme effect is more 10 to 20 folds of argmme than the basal medium, the concentrated argmme solution is prepared by dissolving 16.8-84 mg/L of high concentration of argmme in distilled water, and can be stored below - 20 °C.
In order to prevent the early cell growth inhibition, it is preferable to change the cultured medium mtc the medium composition of the present invention during cultivation or add the proper amount of concentrated argmme solution to the cultured
medium before the cell die. It is more preferable to culture by using the medium composition of the present invention from the beginning of the cultivation.
The present invention has examined the cell growth condition according to the argmme concentration n the medium. It is confirmed that in case of culturing in IMDM containing argm e in the concentration of 84- 420 mg/L, the cell growth rate increases in proportion to the argmme concentration. As a result of examining the produced amount of TPO according to the argmme concentration in the medium, it is found that the amount of TPO produced by culturing in the medium containing 84-420 mg/L of argmme, increases maximum up to 4.3 folds compared with the basal medium m proportion to the argmme concentration m the medium (see FIG. 2) .
When argmme is added by the concentration of 2- 100 folds compared with the basal medium in order to measure the viable cell number according to the argmme concentration in the medium, but it does not increase any more above 50 folds.
This result represents that argmme shows the effect maintaining m proportion to the atgmme concentration up to 50 folds compared with the basal medium, but arg me does not show any effect required for the cell ziabilitv since its concentration is to be saturated abo/e 5U folds.
EXAMPLES
Practical and presently preferred embodiments of the present invention are illustrative as shown in the following Examples . However, it will be appreciated that those skilled m the art, on consideration of this disclosure, may make modifications and improvements within the spirit and scope of the present invention.
Example 1 : Growth of animal cell in arginine-enriched
medium composition
Transformant WF21 producing TPO was prepared by transforming CHO dhfr mutant cell (ATCC CRL 9096) with pDCT (KRP 99-25143) , and was used for animal cell line for producing TPO recombinant protein.
WF21 cell was inoculated into 3 ml of medium on 6 well plate (Nunc, Denmark) by the concentration of 2 X 105 cells/well. The medium used a basal IMDM (Gibco BRL, USA) containing 84 mg/L of argm e (Sigma, USA), IMDM containing 168 mg/L of argmme by 2 folds compared with the nasal medium, and IMDM containing 420 mg/L of argmme by 5 folds compared with the basal medium, and 10 dFBS (dialyzed fetal bovine serum) and
20 nM MTX was added into the each medium.
The inoculated cells were cultured m the incubator (Forma Scientific, USA) used for the animal cell culture in the condition of 37 °C, 5% C02 for 5 days by batch culture. The number of cell was measured by Trypan blue dye exclusion method (Freshney, Culture of animal cells, 268-270, 1994) using hemocytometer (Hausser Scientific, USA) .
As a result, when the cells were cultured in the basal IMDM containing 84 mg/L of argmme, the number of cells reached to the maximum concentration of 3.1 X lO5 cells/well on 2 days after beginning of the cultivation and immediately decreased. On the other hand, when the cells were cultured in the basal IMDM containing 168 mg/L of argm e, it increased to the maximum concentration of 5.9 X 105 cells/well on 3 days after beginning of the cultivation and decreased. In case of IMDM containing 420 mg/L of argmme, the number of cells was still remained at its high concentration to 1.5 X 106 cells/well without decreasing the number of cell on 5 days (FIG. 1) .
Comparative Example 1 : Growth of animal cell in the basal medium composition
Except that the basal medium containing 84 mg/L of argmme was used, WF21 cell line was cultured by the
same method described in the Example 1 (FIG. 1) .
From the result of Comparative Example 1, it was demonstrated that the use of argmme-enriched medium for animal cell culture made the life span of cell longer and the maximum concentration of cells higher.
Example 2 : Production of recombinant protein in the arginine-enriched medium composition
WF21 cell line was performed by batch culture using the basal IMDM, IMDM containing 168 mg/L of arg me and IMDM containing 420 mg/L of argm e respectively, by the same method described m the Example 1. After that, the concentration of TPO produced by WF21 cell line was analyzed by ELISA (sandwich enzyme- linked lmmunosorbent assay) method. A mouse monoclonal antibody to human TPO (hTPO) (R&D System, USA) was used as a coating antigen, and anti-hTPO monoclonal antibody labeled with biotin was used as a secondary antibody. A coloring reaction was performed by using Streptavidme-peroxidase (Sigma, USA) as a coloring enzyme and TMB (3, 3' , 5, 5 ' -Tetramethyl-benzidme base, GibcoBRL, USA) as a substrate of this enzyme, and stopped by adding 1 M sulfuric acid solution. A selling TPO was used as a standard by quantifying its concentration using TPO ELISA kit (Quantιkmeτ , R&D
system, USA) and diluting its concentration into 10, 5, 2.5, 1.25 and 0.625 ng/ml. The degree of coloring was measured at 450 nm by using a microplate reader (Model 550, BioRad, USA), and described m the Table 1.
<Table 1> the variation of TPO concentration according to the argmme concentration
As described in the Table 1, the concentration of TPO produced by culturing in the medium containing 168 mg/L of argmme was about 2.1 folds higher than that by culturing in the basal medium, and the concentration of TPO produced by culturing the medium containing 420 mg/L of argmme about 4.3 folds higher than by culturing in the basal medium (FIG. 2) .
Comparative Example 2 : Production of recombinant protein in the basal medium
Except that the basal IMDM containing 84 mg/L of argm e was used, the cells were cultured m the same condition described ir the Example 2 and ELISA analysis was performed oy the same method described in the
Example 2.
As shown m the Table 1, it was confirmed that when the recombinant protein was produced by using the animal cell, the use of argmme-enriched medium composition in the concentration range of 168 to 420 mg/L as the starting medium made the production rate increased up to 4.3 folds compared with the use of basal medium containing 84 mg/L of argmme.
Example 3 : Relationship between the arginine concentration and the number of viable cell
After filling 3 ml of IMDM basal medium in 6-well plate, the concentrated argmine solution was added to the well to be containing argmme by the concentration of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 folds compared with the basal medium, respectively. The cells were inoculated into the each well by the concentration of 2 X 105 cells/well and cultured for 9 days. After 9 days, the number of viable cell was measured by the same method described in the Example 1 (FIG. 3), and described in the Table 2.
<Table 2> The number of viable cell according to the argmine concentration
As a result, it was demonstrated that when the arg me concentration was to be up to 50 folds compared with the basal medium, the number of viable cell increased m the proportion to the argmme concentration, but the number of viable cell did not increase m above 50 folds of argmme concentration.
Comparative Example 3 : Variation of maximum cell concentration according to the enriched materials in the medium
WF21 cell line was cultured by using alanine, asparagme, glutamme, glycine, histidme, proline, seπne, isoleucme, lycme, methionme, phenylalanme, threonme, tryptophane, tyrosme and valme as the enriched materials in the medium via the same method described m the Example 1.
The maximum number of viable cell using the enriched medium with the above materials was compared with that using the argmme-enriched medium by
measuring the relative value of MTT (3- [4, 5- Dιmethylthιazol-2-yl] -2, 5-dιphenyltetrazolιum bromide, Thiazolyly blue) (FIG. 4) .
Particularly, the number of viable cell was analyzed by adding the above ammo acids into IMDM by 3 X concentration of the basal medium; adding 5 mg/ml of MTT into IMDM after 5 days; culturing at the same concentration for 4 hours; and measuring absorbance at 540 nm as the relative MTT value by using the Microplate Reader (Model 550, BioRad, USA) , and described in the Table 3.
<Table 3> Variation of the maximum cell concentration according to the enriched materials m the medium
As described in the Table 3, when the MTT value in case of the arginine-enriched medium was compared with that in case of the enriched-medium with any other amino acids, it was found that arginine represented significantly high MTT value. Therefore, in case of the arginine-enriched medium, the number of viable cell increased by far, and the recombinant protein was obtained in a high concentration.
INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY
The present invention provides an arginine- enriched medium composition used for mass-producing the recombinant protein via animal cell culture. The arginine-enriched medium composition of the present invention is effectively used for the production of recombinant protein on a high concentration compared with the existing basal medium by preventing the early growth inhibition of animal cell and increasing the maximum concentration of cell via promotion of cell viability .
Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the
conceptions and specific embodiments disclosed in the foregoing description may be readily utilized as a basis for modifying or designing other embodiments for carrying out the same purposes of the present invention Those skilled in the art will also appreciate that such equivalent embodiments do not depart from the spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims .
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