The Phenotype MicroArray Assay Technology For Optimizing Clone Selection, 

Cell Line Development, and Media Formulations in Bioprocessing

Biolog's Phenotype MicroArray (PM) technology provides exactly what is needed by developers in bioprocessing - a simple and

accurate tool measuring cell energetics, for efficiently screening and ranking clones for their metabolic efficiency, and detecting

the effect of hundreds of nutrients that can potentially improve the growth, stability, viability and productivity of cells. If any 

culture medium variables in the PM panels are beneficial, that improvement can be detected and quantified.

Figure 1

Any laboratory can perform these simple, inexpensive assays. Just add a cell suspension with Biolog's redox dye and measure

the rate of purple color formation in each well. The rate of dye reduction indicates the rate of energy production 

(NAD reduction) from each biochemical substrate in the microplate panel. The graphical data shown above were collected with

Biolog's OmniLog instrument which can incubate and kinetically read up to 50 microplate assays.

Figure 2 shows an example of how PM assays can be used to identify cell lines with the most desirable metabolic characteristics.

In this example, 8 sublines of liver cells and 8 of lung cells were characterized and directly compared for their relative metabolic

rates in response to 367 carbon-energy substrates. Faster metabolism is indicated by the dark blue color. The top sublines are 

the liver cells, with cell line 13 having the most rapid metabolism of the greatest number of substrates, outperforming all other 

liver lines.

Figure 2 

Figure 3 shows an example where PM plates were used to identify nutrient substrates that reduced the doubling time of CHO

cells from 23 to 18 hours. CHO cells are the most commonly used cells in industrial bioprocesses and speeding their growth 

can shorten the fermentation time with important cost savings.

Figure 3 

Figure 4 shows an example where PM plates were used to identify nutrient substrates that increased the productivity of an

antibody-producing hybridoma cell. The best supplement increased yield by nearly 50%.

Figure 4

Improving Bioprocess Development with Phenotype MicroArrays from Biolog on Vimeo.