A Rapid Microbial Screening Method for In-Process Biologics.

This study compared an ATP-based bioluminescence rapid microbial method (RMM) with a conventional sterility method for biologic sample testing. The RMM is based on a comparison of ATP levels in inoculated and uninoculated microbiological growth medium samples following growth enrichment incubation. The biologics samples qualified in this study were recombinant monoclonal antibodies and hybridoma cell culture supernatants. Initially, the lot-to-lot variation in background ATP of these samples posed significant challenges. Two strategies to increase the signal-to-noise ratio (positive result/background ATP) were evaluated: enzyme-based signal amplification and reduction of the broth-based noise through broth selection. Following qualification of the RMM for antibody and cell culture samples, the RMM was also utilized for rapid screening of several sources of purified water. This ATP-based RMM has proved invaluable in routine testing of diverse biologic samples at our discovery research site and plays a key role in investigation of contaminated samples.