Flow Activation Energy of High-Concentration Monoclonal Antibody Solutions and Protein-Protein Interactions Influenced by NaCl and Sucrose

Published

August 20, 2024

Author(s)

Guangcui Yuan, Paul Salipante, Steven D. Hudson, Richard Gillilan, Qingqiu Huang, Harold Hatch, Vincent Shen, Alexander Grishaev, Suzette Pabit, Rahul Upadhya, Sudeep Adhikari, Jainik Panchal, Marco Blanco, Yun Liu

Abstract

The solution viscosity and protein−protein interactions (PPIs) as a function of temperature (4−40 °C) were measured at a series of protein concentrations for a monoclonal antibody (mAb) with different formulation conditions, which include NaCl and sucrose. The flow activation energy (Eη) was extracted from the temperature dependence of solution viscosity using the Arrhenius equation. PPIs were quantified via the protein diffusion interaction parameter (kD) measured by dynamic light scattering, together with the osmotic second virial coefficient and the structure factor obtained through small-angle X-ray scattering. Both viscosity and PPIs were found to vary with the formulation conditions. Adding NaCl introduces an attractive interaction but leads to a significant reduction in the viscosity. However, adding sucrose enhances an overall repulsive effect and leads to a slight decrease in viscosity. Thus, the averaged (attractive or repulsive) PPI information is not a good indicator of viscosity at high protein concentrations for the mAb studied here. Instead, a correlation based on the temperature dependence of viscosity (i.e., Eη) and the temperature sensitivity in PPIs was observed for this specific mAb. When kD is more sensitive to the temperature variation, it corresponds to a larger value of Eη and thus a higher viscosity in concentrated protein solutions. When kD is less sensitive to temperature change, it corresponds to a smaller value of Eη and thus a lower viscosity at high protein concentrations. Rather than the absolute value of PPIs at a given temperature, our results show that the temperature sensitivity of PPIs may be a more useful metric for predicting issues with high viscosity of concentrated solutions. In addition, we also demonstrate that caution is required in choosing a proper protein concentration range to extract kD. In some excipient conditions studied here, the appropriate protein concentration range needs to be less than 4 mg/mL, remarkably lower than the typical concentration range used in the literature.

Citation

Molecular Pharmaceutics

Volume

21

Issue

9

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.molpharmaceut.4c00460

Local Download

Keywords

monoclonal antibody, protein interactions, viscosity, NaCl, sucrose, dynamic light scattering, small angle X-ray scattering, rheology, temperature sensitivity, flow activation energy

Citation

Yuan, G. , Salipante, P. , Hudson, S. , Gillilan, R. , Huang, Q. , Hatch, H. , Shen, V. , Grishaev, A. , Pabit, S. , Upadhya, R. , Adhikari, S. , Panchal, J. , Blanco, M. and Liu, Y. (2024), Flow Activation Energy of High-Concentration Monoclonal Antibody Solutions and Protein-Protein Interactions Influenced by NaCl and Sucrose, Molecular Pharmaceutics, [online], https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.molpharmaceut.4c00460, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=957904 (Accessed November 21, 2024)