Interest in continuous bioprocessing is growing rapidly, and such an approach has shown to have a potential in providing gains in both productivity and savings in cost of goods sold. The ÄKTA™ pcc 75 chromatography system can be used for purification of target proteins in continuous downstream processes using periodic counter-current chromatography (PCC). PCC enables greater use of chromatography resin capacity, allowing sample loading to much higher levels than what is possible in traditional batch chromatography by using safety factors for loading (Figure 1). This study shows how the dynamic control functionality of ÄKTA pcc 75 can be used to adjust for variations in binding capacity of chromatography resin or for changes in feed composition when, for example, perfusion cell culture is being used. In this study, dynamic control was used for a protein A monoclonal antibody (MAb) capture step operated in a three-column PCC (3C PCC) setup.
Figure 1: Capacity use for standard and PCC; (A) total available capacity of a chromatography resin; (B) capacity typically measured during process development experiments; (C) capacity typically used in manufacturing after adding safety factors; (D) example of capacity utilized when implementing PCC. Note that product breakthrough is captured by the next column in the loading zone.