Effect of culture conditions on IgM antibody structure, pharmacokinetics and activity.

Culture conditions affect the binding activity, charge heterogeneity, conformational stability, glycosylation, and pharmacokinetics of human monoclonal IgM HMAB-10058. The 10058 human/human/murine trioma was grown in serum-free airlift suspension culture, hollow fiber perfusion culture, or in nude mouse ascites. The ascites-produced antibody showed reduced conformational stability, greater charge and glycoform heterogeneity, and a lower average degree of sialylation than the in vitro culture-produced material. Mean residence time after IV injection in rats was approximately 80-fold greater for the ascites culture-produced material, but specific binding activity was less than 5% of that for the airlift-produced material. In vitro culture in serum-supplemented media (in a hollow fiber perfusion reactor or in shake-flasks) resulted in antibody with pharmacokinetics intermediate between the serum-free airlift and ascites-produced materials. Incubation of airlift-produced antibody in ascites fluid also resulted in material with intermediate pharmacokinetics. Conclusions regarding the effect of culture conditions on antibody product cannot be generalized, as in vitro-produced antibody derived from two related cell lines (HMAB-10233 and HMAB-10390) had long mean residence times similar to that of ascites-produced HMAB-10058.