Influence of Culture Conditions on Insect Cell Growth and Protein Production – Comparison of Wave Bioreactor and Shake Flasks

The insect cell baculovirus system is commonly used to produce recombinant proteins. Shake flasks are frequently used for the cultivation of cells or parallel experiments, e.g. for medium optimization or to investigate infection conditions. Wave bioreactors are a relatively new reactor system, their great advantages are ease of handling and gentle aeration. Characteristic for both systems is the surface aeration and the absence of a rotating stirrer. As each cell line has distinctive properties considering oxygen uptake rate and sensibility to sheer stress, culture conditions have to be examined for each cell line separately. Here growth and byproduct production of High Five cells and Sf-9 cells in shake flasks of different sizes and with different culture volumes were characterized. The influence of the culture conditions on protein production in High Five cells was also analyzed. Afterwards parallel experiments in Wave bioreactors and shake flasks were conducted.