A perfusion-capable microfluidic bioreactor for assessing microbial heterologous protein production

• Main Authors: Lee, Kevin S. (Author), Lee, Harry L. T. (Author), Mozdzierz, Nicholas Joseph (Contributor), Love, Kerry R. (Contributor), Shah, Kartik A (Contributor), Ram, Rajeev J (Contributor), Love, John C (Contributor)
• Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Biomedical Innovation (Contributor), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Chemical Engineering (Contributor), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research Laboratory of Electronics (Contributor), Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT (Contributor)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Royal Society of Chemistry, The, 2017-05-31T14:09:27Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

We present an integrated microfluidic bioreactor for fully continuous perfusion cultivation of suspended microbial cell cultures. This system allowed continuous and stable heterologous protein expression by sustaining the cultivation of Pichia pastoris over 11 days. This technical capability also allowed testing the impact of perfusion conditions on protein expression. This advance should enable small-scale models for process optimization in continuous biomanufacturing.
United States. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (N66001-13-C-4025)
National Cancer Institute (U.S.) (P30-CA14051)
United States. National Institutes of Health (2T32GM008334-26)