Elsevier, Metabolic Engineering Communications, (2), p. 46-57, 2015
DOI: 10.1016/j.meteno.2015.06.001
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Metabolic flux analysis (MFA) is widely used to estimate intracellular fluxes. Conventional MFA, however, is limited to continuous cultures and the mid-exponential growth phase of batch cultures. Dynamic MFA (DMFA) has emerged to characterize time-resolved metabolic fluxes for the entire culture period. Here, the linear DMFA approach was extended using B-spline fitting (B-DMFA) to estimate mass balanced fluxes. Smoother fits were achieved using reduced number of knots and parameters. Additionally, computation time was greatly reduced using a new heuristic algorithm for knot placement. B-DMFA revealed that Chinese hamster ovary cells shifted from 37°C to 32°C maintained a constant IgG volume-specific productivity, whereas the productivity for the controls peaked during mid-exponential growth phase and declined afterward. The observed 42% increase in product titer at 32°C was explained by a prolonged cell growth with high cell viability, a larger cell volume and a more stable volume-specific productivity.