What CHO is made of: Variations in the biomass composition of Chinese hamster ovary cell lines

Abstract

Our study reveals a strong variability of the total protein content and cell dry mass across cell lines. However, the relative amino acid composition is independent of the cell line and condition and thus needs not be explicitly measured for each new cell line. In contrast, the lipid composition is strongly influenced by the growth media and thus will have to be determined in each case. These cell line-specific variations in biomass composition have a small impact on growth rate predictions with FBA, as inaccuracies in the predictions are rather dominated by inaccuracies in the exchange rate spectra. Cell-specific biomass variations only become important if the experimental errors in the exchange rate spectra drop below twenty percent.