WAVE TM Bioreactors and Spinner Flasks: Comparison of the Process Performance of Microcarrier Bead to Bead Transfer and Scale up

Objective: Mammalian cell lines are widely used in biopharmaceuticals,such as the manufacturing of monoclonal antibodies,recombinant proteins and vaccines.For large scale adherent cell culture,microcarriers are developed and widely used in biopharmaceuticals.Adherent cell culture on microcarriers andbe done in both WAVETM reactors and stir tanks.However,to successfully scale up the microcarrier cultures,bead to bead transfer process is necessary.To develop bead to bead transfer,the new scale up technique,and evaluate the reliability of WAVETM reactor,a new generation of large scale fermenters,plenty of cell culture and bead to bead transfer experiments were done in WAVETM reactors and spinner flasks.The data were collected and analyzed.Method: Vero cells were inoculated and cultured with microcarrier Cytodex 1 in WAVETM reactors and spinner flasks,respectively.For good cell propagation,the culture conditions such as pH,temperature and nutrients were controlled appropriately.The cells grown confluent on the microcarriers were separated through bead to bead transfer process including wash,trypsin digesting,and re-inoculating,to be transferred a new scaled up culture.The efficiencies of bead to bead transfer process were evaluated through recording and analyzing the cell recoveries during wash and digestion,and cell growth viabilities after re-inoculum.Results: Statistical analysis showed that the average of cell recoveries of the bead to bead transfer processes from WAVETM reactors and spinner flasks were 67.56% and 39.39%,respectively.P value was below 0.000 3.The average inoculums re-attach efficiency from WAVETM reactors and spinner flasks were 95.17% and 78.45%,respectively.P value was 0.010 7.Conclusion: Bead to bead transfer process done in WAVETM reactors got much better performance in terms of cell recovery and cell viability,comparing with that in spinner flasks.Vero cells grown in WAVETM are in good conditions.As either seed train or production tank,WAVETM reactors wound be muchsuperior comparing with stir tanks.