By the development of novel antibodies, virus retentive membranes are subject to frequently changing external conditions. The properties of these new antibodies negatively impact virus filtration performance, resulting in filter fouling which will disrupt the downstream process. To solve these problems it is required to get a better understanding of the mechanisms of the filter fouling.<br/> <br/>To investigate the underlying mechanism multiple filtrations with different antibodies were conducted. To increase throughput a robotic screening set–up was implemented, which allowed to perform a large number of virus filtration experiments with low amounts of antibody feedstocks. In addition, the impact of adsorptive pre-filtration on virus filter fouling was examined. Utilizing dynamic light scattering (DLS) antibody-specific kD values for quantification of protein-protein interactions were determined and are correlated with the virus filtration performance regarding the achieved individual protein throughputs.<br/>The results indicate the existence of two different types of virus filter fouling mechanisms. Both mechanisms and their mitigation strategies are discussed. Also hypotheses are made on their origin on molecular scale.<br/>

Mechanism of filter fouling of virus retentive membranes

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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