Marlen Zschätzsch
TU Dresden, Germany
Title: Monitoring active and total antibody concentrations for continuous in-process control by Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) spectroscopy
Biography
Biography: Marlen Zschätzsch
Abstract
Antibodies have become an increasingly important part of fundamental research and medical applications. To meet the high market demand of antibodies in the biopharmaceutical sector, industrial manufacturing needs to be achieved by large scale, highly productive and consistent production processes. These are subjected to international guidelines and have to be monitored intensely due to high safety standards for medical applications. Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) spectroscopy - a fast, real-time and label-free bio-sensing method represents an interesting alternative to the quantification of antibody concentrations by ELISA during antibody production. Towards the application of in-process monitoring of active and total antibody concentrations in cell culture probes, a SPR assay using a target antibody model system was developed. In order to ensure the subsequent detection of active antibody concentrations, suitable immobilization strategies of the target were identified. A significant decrease of the limit of detection (LOD) was achieved by using an adapted Ni-NTA method compared to the commonly used amine coupling. Furthermore, the system showed LOD in the low ng/ mL range similar to control antibody quantifications by ELISA. Moreover, the detection of total antibody concentrations for discrimination of specific antibody production efficiency was shown. In conclusion, the development of an alternative quantification system to monitor antibody production was accomplished by using SPR with the advantage of low analyte volume, short assay time and biosensor reusability by target-layer regeneration. The technical development of a SPR-based overall system for continuous in-process control with Sierra Sensor GmbH using the established method is ongoing.