Name: Video: Two-Tiered Expansion of Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells from 5-Liter to 15-Liter Bioreactors and Automated Cell Formulation from a 15-Liter Bioreactor
Uploaded: 2023-07-07T14:30:00
Description: 206 Views. Two-Tiered Expansion of Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells from 5-Liter to 15-Liter Bioreactors and Automated Cell Formulation from a 15-Liter Bioreactor

two-tiered expansion of human mesenchymal stem cells from 5-liter to 15-liter bioreactors and automated cell formulation from a 15-liter bioreactor

Closed System Production of Adherent Cells Based on Dissolvable Microcarriers

The CGT industry has witnessed an exponential expansion over the past two decades. The evolution of next-generation medicines is anticipated to treat and cure numerous refractory diseases1. Since the first Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of a CGT product, Kymriah, in 2017, CGT-related research and development in the world has continued to grow at a fast rate, with the FDA seeing active investigational new drug applications for CGT increased to 500 in 20182. It had been predicted that the number of approvals of CGT products will likely be 54-74 in the United States by 20302.
While the rapid growth in CGT research and innovation is exciting, there is still a large technological gap between lab research and industrial-scale manufacturing that could deliver these promising medicines to reach as many patients as needed at affordable costs. The current processes adopted for these clinical trials were established in labs for small-scale experiments, and significant efforts are needed to improve and innovate on CGT manufacturing3. There are many types of CGT products, most of them based on live cells, which can be allogenic, autologous, engineered, or natural. These living drugs are much more complex than small molecular entities or biologics, hence making large-scale manufacturing a significant challenge4,5,6. In this work, we demonstrate a large-scale cell production protocol for three anchorage-dependent cells that are widely applied in CGTs. These include human mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (hMSCs), which have been used for cell-based therapy, and HEK293T cells and Vero cells, both of which are used to produce viruses for the genetic engineering of the final therapeutic cell product. Anchorage-dependent cells are commonly cultured on planar systems, which require manual processing. However, manual culture methods require a significant amount of labor and are prone to contamination, which can compromise the quality of the end product. Furthermore, there is no in-line process control, leading to substantial variability in quality between batches7. Taking stem cell therapy as an example, with a promising pipeline of over 200 stem-cell therapy candidates, it is estimated that 300 trillion hMSCs would be needed per year to meet the demands of clinical applications8. Hence, the large-scale manufacturing of therapeutic cells has become a prerequisite to perform these therapeutic interventions with such a high cell demand9.
To preclude the setbacks of planar systems, efforts have been made in developing large-scale manufacturing processes in stirred-tank bioreactors with conventional non-dissolvable microcarriers10,11,12,13, but these suffer from complicated preparation procedures and low cell-harvesting efficiency14. Recently, we have innovated a dissolvable microcarrier for stem cell expansion, aiming to circumvent the challenges of cell harvesting from conventional non-dissolvable commercial microcarriers15. This novel, commercially available GMP-grade 3D dissolvable porous microcarrier, 3D TableTrix, has shown great potential for large-scale cell production. Indeed, 3D culture based on these porous microcarriers could potentially recreate favorable biomimetic microenvironments to promote cell adhesion, proliferation, migration, and activation16. The porous structures and interconnected pore networks of microcarriers could create a larger cell adhesion area and promote the exchange of oxygen, nutrients, and metabolites, thus creating an optimal substrate for in vitro cell expansion17. The high porosity of these GMP-grade 3D dissolvable porous microcarriers enables large-scale expansion of hMSCs, and the ability for the cells to be fully dissolved allows for the efficient harvesting of these expanded cells18. It is also a GMP-grade product and has been registered as a pharmaceutical excipient with the Chinese Center for Drug Evaluation (filing numbers: F20210000003 and F20200000496)19 and the FDA of the United States (FDA, USA; Drug Master File number: 35481)20.
Here, we illustrate an automated closed industrial scale cell production (ACISCP) system18 using these dispersible and dissolvable porous microcarriers for hMSC, HEK293T cell, and Vero cell expansion. We achieved a successful two-tiered expansion of hMSCs (128 cumulative fold expansion in 9 days) from a 5 L bioreactor to a 15 L bioreactor and finally obtained up to 1.1 x 1010 hMSCs from a single batch of production. The cells were harvested by completely dissolving the microcarriers, concentrated, washed and formulated with a continuous flow centrifuge-based cell processing system, and then aliquoted with a cell filling system. Furthermore, we assessed the quality of hMSC products to confirm compliance. We also demonstrated the application of these dissolvable microcarriers for the scaled-up production of two other types of anchorage cells, HEK293T cells and Vero cells, that are extensively applied in the CGT industry. The peak cell density of HEK293T cells reached 1.68 x 107 cells/mL, whereas the peak density of Vero cells reached 1.08 x 107 cells/mL. The ACISCP system could be adapted to culture a variety of adherent cells, and it could potentially become a powerful platform contributing to expediting the industrialization of CGT.

Author Spotlight: Advancing Cell Therapy Manufacturing with Dissolvable Microcarriers 

Large-Scale Cell Production Based on GMP-Grade Dissolvable Porous Microcarriers

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Two-Tiered Expansion of Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells from 5-Liter to 15-Liter Bioreactors and Automated Cell Formulation from a 15-Liter Bioreactor  

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206 Views. Two-Tiered Expansion of Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells from 5-Liter to 15-Liter Bioreactors and Automated Cell Formulation from a 15-Liter Bioreactor

Video: Two-Tiered Expansion of Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells from 5-Liter to 15-Liter Bioreactors and Automated Cell Formulation from a 15-Liter Bioreactor  

Researchers in the cell and gene therapy (CGT) industry have long faced a formidable challenge in the efficient and large-scale expansion of cells. To address the primary shortcomings of the two-dimensional (2D) planar culturing system, we innovatively developed an automated closed industrial scale cell production (ACISCP) platform based on a GMP-grade, dissolvable, and porous microcarrier for the 3D culture of adherent cells, including human mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (hMSCs), HEK293T cells, and Vero cells. To achieve large-scale expansion, a two-stage expansion was conducted with 5 L and 15 L stirred-tank bioreactors to yield 1.1 x 1010 hMSCs with an overall 128-fold expansion within 9 days. The cells were harvested by completely dissolving the microcarriers, concentrated, washed and formulated with a continuous-flow centrifuge-based cell processing system, and then aliquoted with a cell filling system. Compared with 2D planar culture, there are no significant differences in the quality of hMSCs harvested from 3D culture. We have also applied these dissolvable porous microcarriers to other popular cell types in the CGT sector; specifically, HEK293T cells and Vero cells have been cultivated to peak cell densities of 1.68 x 107 cells/mL and 1.08 x 107 cells/mL, respectively. This study provides a protocol for using a bioprocess engineering platform harnessing the characteristics of GMP-grade dissolvable microcarriers and advanced closed equipment to achieve the industrial-scale manufacturing of adherent cells.

Here, we present a protocol to achieve the large-scale manufacturing of adherent cells through a fully closed system based on GMP-grade dissolvable microcarriers. The cultivation of human mesenchymal stem cells, HEK293T cells, and Vero cells was validated and met both quantity demands and quality criteria for the cell and gene therapy industry.

Researchers in the cell and gene therapy (CGT) industry have long faced a formidable challenge in the efficient and large-scale expansion of cells. To ...