Development of a microchip capillary electrophoresis method for determination of the purity and integrity of mRNA in lipid nanoparticle vaccines

Messenger RNA (mRNA)-based vaccines are advantageous because they can be relatively quicker and more cost efficient to manufacture compared to other traditional vaccine products. Lipid nanoparticles have three common purposes: delivery, self-adjuvanting properties, and mRNA protection. Faster vaccine development requires an efficient and fast assay to monitor mRNA purity and integrity. Microchip CE is known to be a robust technology that is capable of rapid separation. Here, we describe the development and optimization of a purity and integrity assay for mRNA-based vaccines encapsulated in lipid nanoparticles using commercial microchip-based separation. The analytical parameters of the optimized assay were assessed and the method is a stability indicating assay.     

Identification of archaeal proteins that affect the exosome function in vitro

Background  

The archaeal exosome is formed by a hexameric RNase PH ring and three RNA binding subunits and has been shown to bind and degrade RNA in vitro. Despite extensive studies on the eukaryotic exosome and on the proteins interacting with this complex, little information is yet available on the identification and function of archaeal exosome regulatory factors.     

Applications of CE SDS gel in development of biopharmaceutical antibody-based products

CE SDS gel technique offers many advantages over the traditional labor-intensive SDS PAGE slab gel technology. The CE-based method has increasingly been applied to many protein analysis applications. Specific examples are provided for monoclonal antibody (mAb), though the technique can be adapted to many other therapeutic protein products. Applications of CE SDS gel method using Beckman PA800 with UV detection are presented and discussed with respect to mAb analysis, such as purity, quantitation of non-glycosylated heavy chain (NGHC) peak, identity, and stability. The stability of mAb is evaluated with respect to formulation buffer, accelerated temperature stress, UV light-exposure, and high pH conditions. Both reducing and non-reducing CE SDS gel conditions were applied and optimized to characterize mAb products. The data presented provides a "taste" of what CE SDS gel method can do to support the development of mAb products from early clone screening for product quality to the final product characterization. Since the CE SDS gel method is automatable, quantitative, robust, and allows for relatively high throughput, it provides both great analytical capacity and product coverage for a wide spectrum of protein product development in biopharmaceutical industry.     

Modulation of humoral immune response to oral BCG vaccination by Mycobacterium bovis BCG Moreau Rio de Janeiro (RDJ) in healthy adults

We hypothesize that the energy strategy of a cell is a key factor for determining how, or if, the immune system interacts with that cell. Cells have a limited number of metabolic states, in part, depending on the type of fuels the cell consumes. Cellular fuels include glucose (carbohydrates), lipids (fats), and proteins. We propose that the cell's ability to switch to, and efficiently use, fat for fuel confers immune privilege. Additionally, because uncoupling proteins are involved in the fat burning process and reportedly in protection from free radicals, we hypothesize that uncoupling proteins play an important role in immune privilege. Thus, changes in metabolism (caused by oxidative stresses, fuel availability, age, hormones, radiation, or drugs) will dictate and initiate changes in immune recognition and in the nature of the immune response. This has profound implications for controlling the symptoms of autoimmune diseases, for preventing graft rejection, and for targeting tumor cells for destruction.     

Qualitative and quantitative evaluation of Simon™, a new CE-based automated Western blot system as applied to vaccine development

Many CE-based technologies such as imaged capillary IEF, CE-SDS, CZE, and MEKC are well established for analyzing proteins, viruses, or other biomolecules such as polysaccharides. For example, imaged capillary isoelectric focusing (charge-based protein separation) and CE-SDS (size-based protein separation) are standard replacement methods in biopharmaceutical industries for tedious and labor intensive IEF and SDS-PAGE methods, respectively. Another important analytical tool for protein characterization is a Western blot, where after size-based separation in SDS-PAGE the proteins are transferred to a membrane and blotted with specific monoclonal or polyclonal antibodies. Western blotting analysis is applied in many areas such as biomarker research, therapeutic target identification, and vaccine development. Currently, the procedure is very manual, laborious, and time consuming. Here, we evaluate a new technology called Simple Western? (or Simon?) for performing automated Western analysis. This new technology is based on CE-SDS where the separated proteins are attached to the wall of capillary by a proprietary photo activated chemical crosslink. Subsequent blotting is done automatically by incubating and washing the capillary with primary and secondary antibodies conjugated with horseradish peroxidase and detected with chemiluminescence. Typically, Western blots are not quantitative, hence we also evaluated the quantitative aspect of this new technology. We demonstrate that Simon? can quantitate specific components in one of our vaccine candidates and it provides good reproducibility and intermediate precision with CV <10%.     

Applications of imaged capillary isoelectric focussing technique in development of biopharmaceutical glycoprotein-based products

CE-based methods have increasingly been applied to the analysis of a variety of different type proteins. One of those techniques is imaged capillary isoelectric focusing (icIEF), a method that has been used extensively in the field of protein-based drug development as a tool for product identification, stability monitoring, and characterization. It offers many advantages over the traditional labor-intensive IEF slab gel method and even standard cIEF with on-line detection technologies with regard to method development, reproducibility, robustness, and speed. Here, specific examples are provided for biopharmaceutical glycoprotein products such as mAbs, erythropoietin (EPO), and recombinant Fc-fusion proteins, though the technique can be adapted for many other therapeutic proteins. Applications of iCIEF using a Convergent Bioscience instrument (Toronto, Canada) with whole-field imaging technology are presented and discussed. These include a quick method to establish an identity test for many protein-based products, product release, and stability evaluation of glycoproteins with respect to charge heterogeneity under accelerated temperature stress, different pH conditions, and in different formulations. Finally, characterization of glycoproteins using this iCIEF technology is discussed with respect to biosimilar development, clone selection, and antigen binding. The data presented provide a "taste' of what icIEF method can do to support the development of biopharmaceutical glycoprotein products from early clone screening for better product candidates to characterization of the final commercial products.     

The effect of data scaling on dual prices and sensitivity analysis in linear programs

In many practical situations scaling the data is necessary to solve linear programs. This note explores the relationships in translating the sensitivity analysis between the original and the scaled problems.     

Development of an imaged capillary isoelectric focusing method for characterizing the surface charge of mRNA lipid nanoparticle vaccines

Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) have been employed for drug delivery in small molecules, siRNA, mRNA, and pDNA for both therapeutics and vaccines. Characterization of LNPs is challenging because they are heterogeneous mixtures of large complex particles. Many tools for particle size characterization, such as dynamic and static light scattering, have been applied as well as morphology analysis using electron microscopy. CE has been applied for the characterization of many different large particles such as liposomes, polymer, and viruses. However, there have been limited efforts to characterize the surface charge of LNPs and CIEF has not been explored for this type of particle. Typically, LNPs for delivery of oligonucleotides contain at least four different lipids, with at least one being an ionizable cationic lipid. Here, we describe the development of an imaged capillary isoelectric focusing method used to measure the surface charge (i.e., pI) of an LNP‐based mRNA vaccine. This method is capable of distinguishing the pI of LNPs manufactured with one or more different ionizable lipids for the purpose of confirming LNP identity in a manufacturing setting. Additionally, the method is quantitative and stability‐indicating making it suitable for both process and formulation development.