Effect of operating variables on the yield of recombinant trypsinogen for a pulse‐fed dilution‐refolding reactor

The inclusion body process route for manufacturing proteins offers distinct process advantages in terms of expression levels and the ease of initial inclusion body recovery. The efficiency of the refolding unit operation, however, does determine the overall economic feasibility of a process. Dilution refolding is the simplest and most extensively used refolding operation, although significant yield losses often occur due mainly to aggregation. Operating variables may have a significant effect on the degree of aggregation, but a systematic study has not been reported. This study investigates the effect of operating variables on the dilution refolding of solubilized r‐trypsinogen inclusion bodies in a pulse‐fed stirred reactor. Variables investigated were inclusion body washing, stirring speed, feed rate, concentration of solubilized r‐trypsinogen, and concentration of urea during solubilization of the inclusion bodies. Additionally, the effect of baffles in the reactor was investigated. The yield of renatured r‐trypsinogen varied between 12 ± 0.2% and 21 ± 1.0% depending on the specific combination of operating variables employed. It is clear that a suboptimal operating strategy can significantly reduce protein yield. In particular, we note that an increased intensity of mixing adversely affected yield in contrast to previous reports indicating that enhanced dispersion increases yield. We conclude that yield is determined not only by the efficiency of dispersion, but also by the local chemical environment of the protein as it folds, and the rate of change of this environment. This will be controlled by micromixing effects, and hence the intensity of agitation, in a complex manner requiring further characterization. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Biotechnol Bioeng 77: 435–444, 2002; DOI 10.1002/bit.10148