Effect of lipid supplements on the production and glycosylation of recombinant interferon-gamma expressed in CHO cells.

The effects of lipids on the glycosylation of recombinant human interferon-gamma expressed in a Chinese Hamster Ovary cell line were investigated in batch culture. Lipids form an essential part of the N-glycosylation pathway, and have been shown to improve cell viability. In control (serum-free) medium the proportion of fully-glycosylated interferon-gamma deteriorated reproducibly with time in batch culture, but the lipoprotein supplement ExCyte was shown to minimise this trend. Partially substituting the bovine serum albumin content of the medium with a fatty-acid free preparation also improved interferon-gamma glycosylation, possibly indicating that oxidised lipids carried on Cohn fraction V albumin may damage the glycosylation process.