Use of a stress-minimisation paradigm in high cell density fed-batch Escherichia coli fermentations to optimise recombinant protein production.

Christopher Wyre, Timothy Overton

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

12 Citations (Scopus)
465 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Production of recombinant proteins is an industrially important technique in the biopharmaceutical sector. Many recombinant proteins are problematic to generate in a soluble form in bacteria as they readily form insoluble inclusion bodies. Recombinant protein solubility can be enhanced by minimising stress imposed on bacteria through decreasing growth temperature and the rate of recombinant protein production. In this study, we determined whether these stress-minimisation techniques can be successfully applied to industrially relevant high cell density Escherichia coli fermentations generating a recombinant protein prone to forming inclusion bodies, CheY-GFP. Flow cytometry was used as a routine technique to rapidly determine bacterial productivity and physiology at the single cell level, enabling determination of culture heterogeneity. We show that stress minimisation can be applied to high cell density fermentations (up to a dry cell weight of >70 g L-1) using semi-defined media and glucose or glycerol as carbon sources, and using early or late induction of recombinant protein production, to produce high yields (up to 6 g L-1) of aggregation-prone recombinant protein in a soluble form. These results clearly demonstrate that stress minimisation is a viable option for the optimisation of high cell density industrial fermentations for the production of high yields of difficult-to-produce recombinant proteins, and present a workflow for the application of stress-minimisation techniques in a variety of fermentation protocols.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1391-1404
Number of pages14
JournalJournal of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology
Volume41
Issue number9
Early online date24 Jul 2014
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Sept 2014

Keywords

  • green fluorescent protein
  • fed-batch fermentation
  • Flow Cytometry
  • Inclusion Bodies

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Use of a stress-minimisation paradigm in high cell density fed-batch Escherichia coli fermentations to optimise recombinant protein production.'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this