Animal/mammalian cell culture scale

One major advantage of monoclonal antibodies from plants is the potential low cost of large-scale production. There are commercial companies (such as EPIcyte Pharmaceutical Inc) who are planning clinical dials for plant-produced secretory antibodies for human therapy. These so-called plantibodies can be produced at an estimated cost of 0.01 to 0.1/mg as opposed to 1 to 5/mg for production from cell culture processing of animal-derived hybridomas. The cost of microbial fermentation is lower than that of mammalian cell culture but bacteria lack the ability for efficient multimeric protein assembly and of any post-translational modification. A further potential advantage of the plantibodies is delivery by consumption of plant tissue and thus avoiding any need of purification. These possibilities are particularly applicable in certain cases such as the previously shown ability of a plant-produced... 

Mammalian cells Get export of proteins Get desired post-translational modifications and products not likely to be immunogenic to humans Good expression systems available Large-scale growth of animal cells costly Great care needed to avoid contamination of cultures... 

Animal cells, and in particular mammalian cells, are cultured on industrial scale to produce vaccines, interferons, and monoclonal antibodies for diagnostic and therapeutic uses, among others materials. 

S. N., Insect cell culture for industrial production of recombinant proteins, Appl. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 62, 1-20, 2003 Kallos, M.S., Sen, A., and Behie, L.A., Large-scale expansion of mammalian neural stem cells a review, Med. Biol. Eng. Comput. 41, 271-282, 2003 Schiff, L.J., Review production, characterization, and testing of banked mammalian cell substrates used to produce biological products in vitro, Cell Dev. Biol. Animal 41, 65-70, 2005 Evan, M.S., Sandusky, C.B., and Barnard, N.D., Serum-free hybridoma culture ethical, scientific, and safety considerations, Trends Biotechnol. 24, 105-108, 2006. 

All mammalian cells used for the large-scale production of recombinant proteins are considered immortalized , as they can be grown continuously for an indefinite period if correct culture conditions are provided. This is an exceptional characteristic for animal-derived cells, since the tissues and organs of animals are constructed of cells with a defined lifespan. The limited lifespan of cells in animals was detected first by Hayflick [133], and is linked -among other reasons - to a declining telo-merase activity on chromosomes of somatic cells, but not in germ cells. 

Whitford (48) provides mnch more information that is of interest to chemical engineers involved in the design and operation of fed batch processes for culture of animal cells. Shukla and Thommes (49) discnssed additional aspects of fed batch culture of mammalian cells for large scale production of monoclonal antibodies and related proteins. Further information concerning the use of bioreactors for culture of mammalian cells is contained in the article Mammalian Cell Bioreactors by Zhou and co-workers in the Encyclopedia of Industrial Biotechnology (50). 

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