Perfusion culture apparatus for suspended mammalian cells.

A variety of processes have been proposed for mammalian cell culture in the commercial production of useful substances (e.g., monoclonal antibodies, therapeutic and diagnostic proteins). Among them, the perfusion culture of suspended non-immobilized cells is the most advantageous. Perfusion culture can be classified by the separation process of suspended cells from the culture mixture into three types, namely filtration, gravitational settling and centrifugation. From a commercial point of view, the present situation and technical problems of suspended cell perfusion culture will be reviewed based on the three types. The recent development of perfusion culture has been carried out mainly on the filtration separation process, but the centrifugation process seems to have a promising future because of operation stability and scale-up feasibility. The reasons will be explained in details.