Experimental and economic evaluation of different culture systems for mesenchymal stromal/stem cell expansion for clinical applications

The translation of cell therapies into clinical practice requires a scalable, efficient and cost-effective manufacturing process. This study presents an integrated experimental and cost analysis of different cell culture technologies for commercial manufacture of a novel umbilical cord-derived cell therapy, currently in early phase clinical trials for the treatment of acute graft-versus-host disease (aGvHD). The experimental analysis assessed the expansion and harvest potential of mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs), derived from umbilical cord matrix (UCM-MSCs), in different scalable cell culture technologies: a multi-layer vessel (ML), a stirred tank bioreactor with microcarrriers (STR), a hollow fiber bioreactor (HF) and a packed-bed bioreactor (PB). The presentation will highlight differences in cell proliferation rate, expansion fold and harvesting efficiency across the technologies. The cells retained their functional properties post culture in all the technologies evaluated. The experimental results were incorporated into a bioprocess economics tool comprising a stochastic cost of goods (COG) and sizing model to evaluate the commercial economic feasibility and robustness of the technologies. The financial and risk rank orders predicted by the tool will be presented, as well as their sensitivity to the reimbursement scenario selected. The model determined industrially relevant scenarios for which no technology will yield a satisfactory gross margin, indicating that many studies are still needed to establish an optimized manufacturing process

Expansion strategies for human mesenchymal stromal cells cultured under xeno-free conditions

Choosing the culture system and culture medium used to produce cells are key steps towards a safe, scalable and cost-effective expansion bioprocess for cell therapy purposes. Traditionally, mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC) have been cultured in a defined basal medium (DMEM or alpha-MEM) supplemented with fetal bovine serum (FBS). Although effective, the use of FBS or other animal-derived components in manufacturing processes is highly discouraged by regulatory agencies due to the risk of transmitting xenogeneic infectious agents and immunization. The use of AB human serum (AB HS) as an alternative xeno-free medium supplement for MSC has increasingly gained relevance due to safety and efficiency aspects. Here we have evaluated different scalable culture systems to produce a meaningful number of umbilical cord matrix-derived MSC (UCM MSC) using AB HS for culture medium supplementation during expansion and cryopreservation to enable a xeno-free bioprocess. UCM MSC were cultured in a scalable planar (compact 10-layer flasks and roller bottles) and 3D microcarrier-based culture systems (spinner flasks and stirred tank bioreactor). 10 layer-flasks and roller bottles enabled the production of 2.6±0.6x104 and 1.4±0.3x104 cells/cm2 (4.5±1.1x107 and 3.0±0.7x107 cells) representing a fold increase of 13.0 and 7.11, respectively. UCM MSC-based microcarrier expansion in the stirred conditions has enabled the production of higher cell densities (5.0-23.0x104 cells/cm2) when compared to planar systems. Nevertheless, due to the moderate harvest efficiency attained (80% for spinner flasks and 53.9% for bioreactor) the total cell number recovered, 3.3-3.7x107 cells, was lower than expected. After the expansion in the culture systems evaluated, the cells maintained the functional properties: the cells were able to differentiate into adipocytes, chondrocytes and osteocytes and presented a typical immunophenotype profile. The cryopreservation of cells (also using AB HS) was also successfully carried out in plastic bags to facilitate post-thaw manipulation and enable clinical use. No significant difference was observed when comparing pre-cryopreservation and post-thaw viabilities of cells expanded in the planar (T-flasks) and 3D culture system (spinner flask with microcarriers) indicating that cells which expanded on a larger scale in microcarrier-based suspension cultures could be successfully cryopreserved in plastic bags, with a higher cell number (up to 4x108 cells) and under xeno-free conditions. Overall, our results indicated that among the planar culture systems evaluated, compact multilayer vessels could be used to easily produce enough cells to treat a small number of patients, and are therefore recommended for autologous therapies. However, for a fully-controlled and larger-scale cell production, in an autologous and/or allogeneic scenario, stirred tank bioreactors combined with microcarrier technology and xeno-free media can be successfully used, allowing for GMP-compliant expansion

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Expansion in vitro of mesenchymal stem cell and secretome characterization: therapeutic and biotechnology applications

As células estromais mesenquimais (CMMs) se tornaram de grande interesse para a terapia celular devido ao seu potencial de se diferenciar e reconstituir tecidos especializados. Mais recentemente, este interesse tem aumentado significativamente devido à descoberta de que as CMMs são capazes de secretar uma infinidade de mediadores para estimular a regeneração in situ de tecidos lesados. Dessa forma, CMMs podem ser consideradas tanto como um produto terapêutico em si, quanto uma biofábrica de diversas proteínas relevantes do ponto de vista terapêutico. Para atender a estas crescentes demandas, ambas as aplicações requerem o desenvolvimento de processos de expansão celular com alto rendimento, sob condições de cultivo definidas, reprodutíveis, escalonáveis, permitindo a obtenção de produtos com adequada identidade, potência, pureza, segurança e viáveis economicamente. Frente ao exposto, este trabalho teve como objetivos principais o estabelecimento de um processo de expansão de CMMs baseado em biorreatores e a caracterização do secretoma destas células visando aplicações terapêuticas. Para isto, a expansão de CMMs do cordão umbilical (MCUs) foi realizada em frascos multicamadas (MC) e nos biorreatores de leito fixo (LF), tanque agitado com microcarregadores (TA) e fibrasocas (FO). Os resultados mostraram que a taxa de proliferação específica das células foi maior (< tempo de duplicação) no biorreator de FO (36,8 ± 1,7 horas), bem como o fator de expansão (9,8 ± 1,0) e a eficiência na recuperação celular (100%). Um nível similar de produção celular foi observado para o TA, MC e LF com elevado fator de expansão celular (8,8 ± 0,39, 8,7 ± 0,90, 6,9 ± 1,3, respectivamente). No entanto, em termos de eficiência na recuperação celular (%), LF apresentou a menor taxa de recuperação dentre todos os sistemas (18% (± 0,77)), acompanhado pelo TA (61% (± 15,7)). As células mantiveram suas características imunofenotípicas e o potencial de diferenciação em adipócitos, osteócitos e condrócitos em todos os sistemas de cultivo avaliados. Foi também realizada a análise de custos (COG) e avaliação da viabilidade econômica para produção de CMMs visando tratamento da doença do enxerto contra o hospedeiro (DECH) em escala comercial, utilizando os sistemas de cultivo avaliados experimentalmente sob diferentes estratégias de reembolso. Apesar dos resultados experimentais satisfatórios para o biorreator FO, o COG revelou que este sistema tem o maior custo devido aos elevados custos dos consumíveis requeridos e do custo do equipamento. O frasco MC foi considerado como a tecnologia mais rentável e robusta no cenário avaliado e o biorreator TA obteve a segunda posição. O biorreator TA foi escolhido como o mais adequado analisando de maneira conjunta os dados experimentais obtidos, a análise dos custos dos diferentes sistemas de cultivo e a escalonabilidade de cada sistema. Assim, esse biorreator foi eficientemente utilizado para o cultivo de MCUs em condições isentas de SFB e xenoantígenos, sendo possível a produção de uma grande quantidade de células, representando um passo importante no desenvolvimento de um bioprocesso em conformidade com as normas das agências regulatórias. Por fim, com a análise do secretoma das CMMs por espectrometria de massas foi possível a identificação de uma gama enorme de proteínas interessantes (aprox. 2400) envolvidas em importantes processos biológicos. O futuro monitoramento dessas proteínas em biorreatores poderá representar um método inovador e original de produção de produtos livres de células para uso na terapia celular.Mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSC) have become of great interest for cell therapy because of its potential to differentiate and reconstitute specialized tissues. More recently, such interest has significantly increased due to the discovery that MSC are capable of secreting a plethora of mediators to stimulate the in situ regeneration of injured tissues. Thus, MSC can be considered as a therapeutic product itself and as a biofactory of various relevant therapeutic proteins. To meet these increasing demands, both applications require the development of high-yield, reproducible, scalable and cost-effective bioprocesses under defined culture conditions, obtaining products with proper identity, purity and safety. Based on these, the main goal of this work was the establishment of a MSC expansion process based on bioreactors and secretome characterization of these cells targeting therapeutic applications. The MSC expansion was performed using multi-layered flasks (ML) and fixed bed (PB), stirred tank (STR) and hollow fiber (HF) bioreactors. The results showed that the proliferation rate of the cells was higher (< doubling time) in the HF bioreactor (36.8 ± 1.7 hours), as well as the expansion fold-increase (9.8±1.0) and harvesting efficiency (100%). A similar level of cell production was observed for STR, ML and PB with high fold-increase (8.8±0.39, 8.7±0.90, 6.9±1.3, respectively). However, in terms of harvesting efficiency (%), PB bioreactor presented the lowest retrieval rate across all the technologies (18% (±0.77)), followed by STR (61% (±15.7)). The cells retained their functional properties after culture in all the culture systems evaluated. This study was then extended through the use of a bioprocess economics tool for the evaluation of the economic feasibility of producing MSC-based treatment for acute graft vs. host disease (aGvHD) at commercial scale, using the culture systems experimentally evaluated under different reimbursement strategies. Despite the advantageous experimental results of HF bioreactors, the COG analysis has revealed that this is the least cost effective cell culture system to be used, due to its high consumable and equipment costs. ML flasks ranked first as the most cost effective and robust technology in this scenario and microcarrier-based technologies (STR) ranked in second position. The STR bioreactor was chosen as the most suitable for MSC expansion analyzing the experimental data, COG analysis and scalability of each culture system. Thus, STR bioreactor was efficiently tested for MSC expansion under serum and xeno-free conditions and it was possible to produce a large amount of cells. The development of a scalable microcarrier-based stirred culture system using xeno-free culture medium that suits the intrinsic features of UCM-derived MSC represents an important step towards a GMP compliant large-scale production platform for these promising cell therapy candidates. Finally, with the MSC secretome analysis by mass spectrometry it was possible to identify a wide range of interesting proteins (approx. 2400) involved in important biological processes. The future monitoring of these proteins in bioreactors may represent a novel and unique method of producing cell-free products for use in cellular therapy

Expansão in vitro de células-tronco mesenquimais cultivadas em biorreator de fibra oca

The mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are multipotent stem cells that can differentiate into various types of tissue, a characteristic that makes them interesting for applications in cell therapy. Moreover, cells are anchorage-dependent (ability to adhere to surfaces), easy isolation and rapid expansion in vitro. The traditional cultures of anchorage-dependent animal cells, usually grown in monolayers, resulting in low crop yield and cell recovery, preventing the use of MSCs in therapeutic applications. The need for alternative farming techniques for expansion of MSCs in a large scale have led researchers to the use of "bioreactor technology," which has been seconded from the bioreactor, spinner flask with microcarriers and hollow fiber (hollow fiber). The objective of this work was to develop a method of cultivation known as mesenchymal stem cell line hMSC-TERT in spinner flasks with microcarriers for subsequent inoculation into hollow-fiber bioreactor, aiming at the efficient expansion and the subsequent recovery of MSCs so that preserve their differentiation potential in order to be used in cell therapy. In cultured, we used the microcarrier Pronectin ® F 100 mL spinner flasks with culture medium &#945;-MEM with 15% fetal calf serum, kept in a CO2 incubator at 37 ° C and pH between 7.2 and 7.4. In cultures in spinner flasks were adopted strategies such as supplementation of the culture medium, exchanges of culture medium during cultivation, addition of reagents to reduce clusters of microcarriers, to increase productivity for the subsequent cell inoculation in hollow fiber bioreactor. The use of these strategies has increased productivity cell, achieving a best result of cell multiplication factor (MCF) of 5.79. However, obtaining higher FMC was drastically limited by the formation of clusters of microcarriers in a gel matrix.The cell recovery was low maintenance and analysis of the antigenic phenotype by flow cytometry confirmed the conservation of phenotypic characteristics of hMSC-TERT. The hollow fiber bioreactor is an alternative to the clusters of microcarriers, it allows oxygenation and adequate supply of nutrients. Thus, in experiments carried out in hollow-fiber bioreactor used the &#945;-MEM supplemented with 15% FBS (v / v), 2.0 g / L glucose, 2.50 mM glutamine, 2.60 mM arginine, 0.07% antifoam PPG. The cells were inoculated after 48 hours of cultivation in spinner flasks in a gel composed of collagen, hyaluronic acid, agar (1.5%) in the proportion 0.75: 0.037: 0.21 at pH 7.2 to 7.4 . Thus, the resulting gel was mixed with culture medium in &#945;-MEM 1:3 ratio, to provide better grip on the fibers. The total expansion factor, ie the one calculated from the inoculation of the spinner to the end of cultivation in hollow fiber bioreactor was 11, 2, which can be considered the greatest value achieved in this work. It is clear that this expansion factor can still be easily overcome by adopting strategies to grow more frequent replacement of culture medium. This hypothesis is strengthened by the proven fact that the microcarriers are not yet saturated with cells at the end of the experiment.Universidade Federal de Sao CarlosAs células-tronco mesenquimais (CTMs) são células-tronco multipotentes que podem se diferenciar em diversos tipos de tecido, característica que as torna interessantes em aplicações de terapia celular. Além disso, são células dependentes de ancoramento (capacidade de aderir em superfícies), de fácil isolamento e de rápida expansão in vitro. As culturas tradicionais de células animais dependentes de ancoramento, geralmente cultivadas em monocamadas, resultam em baixo rendimento de cultivo e de recuperação celular, inviabilizando o uso das CTMs em aplicações terapêuticas. A necessidade de técnicas de cultivo alternativas para expansão de CTMs em larga escala têm levado pesquisadores à utilização de tecnologia de biorreatores , na qual tem-se destacado dos biorreatores: frasco spinner com microcarregadores e hollow fiber (fibra oca). Assim, o objetivo deste trabalho foi o de desenvolver uma metodologia de cultivo da linhagem de CTM conhecida como hMSC-TERT em frasco spinner com microcarregadores para posterior inoculação em biorreator de fibraoca, visando a expansão eficiente e a posterior recuperação das CTMs de tal forma que, preservassem seu potencial de diferenciação para poderem ser utilizadas na terapia celular. Nos cultivos, utilizou-se o microcarregador Pronectin®F em frasco spinner de 100 mL com o meio de cultura &#945;-MEM com 15% de soro fetal bovino, mantidos em incubadora de CO2 a 37ºC e pH entre 7,2 e 7,4. Nos cultivos em frasco spinner adotaram-se estratégias como suplementação do meio de cultura, trocas de meio de cultura durante o cultivo, adição de reagentes para diminuição de aglomerados de microcarregadores, visando aumentar a produtividade celular para a posterior inoculação em biorreator de fibra oca. A utilização dessas estratégias permitiram aumentar a produtividade celular, obtendo-se como melhor resultado um fator de multiplicação celular (FMC) de 5,79. Contudo, a obtenção de FMC maiores foi drasticamente limitada pela formação de aglomerados de microcarregadores num gel de matriz extracelular. A recuperação celular foi baixa e a análise da manutenção do fenótipo antigênico por citometria de fluxo comprovaram a conservação das características fenotípicas da hMSC-TERT. O biorreator de fibras ocas é uma alternativa em relação aos aglomerados de microcarregadores, pois permite a oxigenação e suprimento adequado de nutrientes. Sendo assim, nos experimentos realizados no biorreator de fibras-ocas utilizou-se o &#945;-MEM suplementado com 15% SFB (v/v), 2,0 g/L de glicose, 2,50 mM de glutamina, 2,60 mM de arginina, 0,07 % do antiespumante PPG. As células foram inoculadas após 48 horas de cultivo em frasco spinner em um gel composto por colágeno: ácido hialurônico: ágar (1,5%) na proporção 0,75: 0,037: 0,21 em pH = 7,2-7,4. Assim, o gel resultante foi misturado com meio de cultura &#945;-MEM na proporção 1:3, para proporcionar melhor aderência nas fibras. O fator de expansão total, ou seja, aquele calculado desde a inoculação do spinner até o final do cultivo no biorreator de fibra oca, foi de 11, 2, que pode ser considerado o maior valor atingido neste trabalho. Convém esclarecer que este fator de expansão ainda pode ser facilmente superado ao se adotarem estratégias de cultivo com trocas mais frequentes de meio de cultura. Esta hipótese é reforçada pelo fato comprovado de os microcarregadores ainda não estarem saturados de células no final do experimento

Mesenchymal Stromal Cells: From Discovery to Manufacturing and Commercialization

Over the last decades, mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC) have been the focus of intense research by academia and industry due to their unique features. MSC can be easily isolated and expanded through in vitro culture by taking full advantage of their self-renewing capacity. In addition, MSC exert immunomodulatory effects and can be differentiated into various lineages, which makes them highly attractive for clinical applications in cell-based therapies. In this review, we attempt to provide a brief historical overview of MSC discovery, characterization, and the first clinical studies conducted. The current MSC manufacturing platforms are reviewed with special attention regarding the use of bioreactors for the production of GMP-compliant clinically relevant cell numbers. The first commercial MSC-based products are also addressed, as well as the remaining challenges to the widespread use of MSC-derived products