Downstream Processing of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii TN72 for Recombinant Protein Recovery

Abstract

, as well as with an ultra scale-down (USD) mimic of the centrifuges. Solids recovery exceeded 99.5% and the loss of product to the supernatant was below 2-3%. TN72 is intact following the high shear conditions of the feed zone, however discharge from both disc-stack centrifuges resulted in full cell breakage and in the case of Pal, partial degradation in the subsequent hours. We demonstrated that shake flask cultivation and the USD centrifuge technique can be used to predict the pilot-scale clarification efficiency and product release at the centrifuge inlet for TN72, but not the cell breakage on discharge. This study outlines a number of challenges for scale-up of recombinant protein production in the microalgal host in particular for whole cell therapeutics, but also opportunities for the bioprocessing of intracellular products from TN72.