Comparative phenotypic analysis of CHO clones and culture media for lactate shift

We explored the effects of media and clonal variation on the lactate shift which can be considered as one of the desirable features in CHO cell culture. Various culture profiles with the specific growth and antibody production rates under three different media conditions in two CHO producing clones were evaluated by resorting to multivariate statistical analysis. In most cases, glutamine depletion coincided with lactate consumption, suggesting that glutaminolysis rather than glycolysis was the preferred pathway for the pyruvate supply toward lactate production. With respect to the lactate shift, high performing medium showed higher glutamate uptake, higher aspartate secretion and lower serine uptake compared to other media conditions. In addition, clone itself exhibited the desired lactate consumption more consistently accompanying with distinguishing phenotype. The clone exhibiting lactate shift produced lesser lactate in exponential phase but two-fold higher non-toxic alanine, thus leading to better culture environment. Thus, we understand the balanced selection of clone and media composition enables cells to utilize the metabolic pathways for the desired lactate shift.