Raman Spectroscopic Analysis of Highly-Concentrated Antibodies under the Acid-Treated Conditions.

PURPOSE: Antibody drugs are usually formulated as highly-concentrated solutions, which would easily generate aggregates, resulting in loss of efficacy. Although low pH increases the colloidal dispersion of antibodies, acid denaturation can be an issue. Therefore, knowing the physical properties at low pH under high concentration conditions is important. METHODS: Raman spectroscopy was used to investigate pH-induced conformational changes of antibodies at 50 mg/ml. Experiments in pH 3 to 7 were performed for human serum IgG and recombinant rituximab. RESULTS: We detected the evident changes at pH 3 in Tyr and Trp bands, which are the sensitive markers of intermolecular interactions. Thermal transition analysis over the pH range demonstrated that the thermal transition temperature (Tm) was highest at pH 3. Acid-treated and neutralized one showed higher Tm than that of pH 7, indicating that their extent of intermolecular interactions correlated with the Tm values. Onset temperature was clearly different between concentrated and diluted samples. Colloidal analyses confirmed the findings of the Raman analysis. CONCLUSION: Our studies demonstrated the positive correlation between Raman analysis and colloidal information, validating as a method for evaluating antibody conformation associated with aggregation propensities.

Assessment of the Protein-Protein Interactions in a Highly Concentrated Antibody Solution by Using Raman Spectroscopy.

PURPOSE: To investigate the protein-protein interactions of a highly concentrated antibody solution that could cause oligomerization or aggregation and to develop a better understanding of the optimization of drug formulations. METHODS: In this study, we used Raman spectroscopy to investigate the structure and interactions of a highly concentrated antibody solution over a wide range of concentrations (10-200 mg/mL) with the aid of a multivariate analysis. RESULTS: Our analysis of the amide I band, I 856 /I 830 of Tyr, and the relative intensity at 1004 cm(-1) of the Phe and OH stretching region at around 3000 cm(-1) showed that across this wide range of concentrations, the secondary structure of the IgG molecules did not change; however, short-range attractive interactions around the Tyr and Phe residues occurred as the distance between the IgG molecules decreased with increasing concentration. Analysis of the OH stretching region at around 3000 cm(-1) showed that these short-range attractive interactions correlated with the amount of hydrated water around the IgG molecules. CONCLUSIONS: Our data show that Raman spectroscopy can provide valuable information of the protein-protein interactions based on conformational approaches to support conventional colloidal approaches, especially for analyses of highly concentrated solutions.

The molecular interaction of a protein in highly concentrated solution investigated by Raman spectroscopy.

We used Raman spectroscopy to investigate the structure and interactions of lysozyme molecules in solution over a wide range of concentrations (2.5-300 mg ml(-1)). No changes in the amide-I band were observed as the concentration was increased, but the width of the Trp band at 1555 cm(-1) and the ratios of the intensities of the Tyr bands at 856 and 837 cm(-1), the Trp bands at 870 and 877 cm(-1), and the bands at 2940 (CH stretching) and 3420 cm(-1) (OH stretching) changed as the concentration was changed. These results reveal that although the distance between lysozyme molecules changed by more than an order of magnitude over the tested concentration range, the secondary structure of the protein did not change. The changes in the molecular interactions occurred in a stepwise process as the order of magnitude of the distance between molecules changed. These results suggest that Raman bands can be used as markers to investigate the behavior of high-concentration solutions of proteins and that the use of Raman spectroscopy will lead to progress in our understanding not only of the basic science of protein behavior under concentrated (i.e., crowded) conditions but also of practical processes involving proteins, such as in the field of biopharmaceuticals.