Insights into the loss of protein sialylation in an fc-fusion protein-producing CHO cell bioprocess

Sialylation affects circulating half-life, charge distribution, and other biochemical properties of therapeutic glycoproteins. Loss of protein sialylation during glycoprotein-producing bioprocesses could lead to a low final protein sialylation level and bring negative effects on subsequent clinical efficacy. In this work, an Fc-fusion protein-producing Chinese hamster ovary cell fed-batch culture process was studied and insights into the loss of protein sialylation during the Fc-fusion protein production phase (days 5 to 13) were presented. The results showed that the decreased total sialic acid content was 13.84 μg/mg during the production phase, which accounted for 24% of the total sialic acid content on day 5. The lost sialic acids were predominantly from α 2-3 sialylation on N- and O-glycans. Through cell-free incubation and kinetics studies, it was found that the decreased sialic acid content caused by extracellular sialic acid degradation and incomplete glycan biosynthesis were 7.79 μg/mg and 6.05 μg/mg, respectively. The two processes had a nearly equal contribution to the loss of final product sialylation. Detailed characterizations revealed that decreases in sialic acid content were due either to extracellular sialic acid degradation via hydrolysis of α 2-3 sialic acids probably by released cytosolic sialidase or to a lack of galactosylated glycan availability for sialylation during late-stage glycosylation. Our work provides a better understanding of losses in protein sialylation during glycoprotein manufacturing.