New publication in Nature Communications

Postdoc Weihua Tian and colleagues from CCG have just published a study about glycoengineered EPO in the prestigious journal Nature Communications.

Recombinant production of glycoprotein therapeutics like erythropoietin (EPO) in mammalian CHO cells rely on the heterogeneous N-glycosylation capacity of the cell. Recently, approaches for engineering the glycosylation capacities of mammalian cells for custom designed glycoforms have been developed. With these opportunities there is an increasing need for fast, sensitive, and global analysis of the glycoproteoform landscape produced to evaluate homogeneity and consistency. Here we use high-resolution native mass spectrometry to measure the glycoproteoform profile of 24 glycoengineered variants of EPO. Based on the unique mass and intensity profiles of each variant, we classify them according to similarities in glycosylation profiles. The classification distinguishes EPO variants with varying levels of glycan branching and sialylation, which are crucial parameters in biotherapeutic efficacy. We propose that our methods could be of great benefit in the characterization of other glycosylated biopharmaceuticals, ranging from the initial clonal selection to batch-to batch controls, and the assessment of similarity between biosimilar/biobetter products.

Read the full story:
Caval T, Tian W, Yang Z, Clausen H & Heck AJ (2018): Direct quality control of glycoengineered erythropoietin variants. Nat Commun 9: 3342. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-05536-3


Read about the publication in the newsletter of Utrecht University