Cell culture medium supplemented with taurine decreases basic charge variant levels of a monoclonal antibody.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the impact of taurine on monoclonal antibody (mAb) basic charge variants in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell culture.

RESULTS: In fed-batch culture, adding taurine in the feed medium slightly increased the maximum viable cell density and mAb titers in CHO cells. What's more, taurine significantly decreased the lysine variant and oxidized variant levels, which further decreased basic variant contents from 32 to 27%. The lysine variant content in the taurine culture was approximately 4% lower than that in control condition, which was the main reason for the decrease in basic variants. Real-time PCR and cell-free assay revealed that taurine played a critical role in the upregulation of relative basic carboxypeptidase and stimulating extracellular basic carboxypeptidase activities.

CONCLUSION: Taurine exhibits noticeable impact on lower basic charge variants, which are mainly due to the decrease of lysine variant and oxidized protein variants.