Disposable bioreactors for inoculum production and protein expression.

Disposable bioreactors have been increasingly implemented over the past ten years. This relates to both R & D and commercial manufacture, in particular, in animal cell-based processes. Among the numerous disposable bioreactors which are available today, wave-mixed bag bioreactors and stirred bioreactors are predominant. Whereas wave-mixed bag bioreactors represent the system of choice for inoculum production, stirred systems are often preferred for protein expression. For this reason, the authors present protocols instructing the reader how to use the wave-mixed BIOSTAT CultiBag RM 20 L for inoculum production and the stirred UniVessel SU 2 L for recombinant protein production at benchtop scale. All methods described are based on a Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) suspension cell line expressing the human placental secreted alkaline phosphatase (SEAP).