Analysis of the dynamic interaction of p(carbon dioxide) and pH in mammalian cell culture

Control of dissolved carbon dioxide levels is very important to the performance of CHO cell culture processes. Increasing pCO2 levels are a common problem with large-scale cell culture operations. This study investigated the relationship between pCO2, pH, lactate levels, and NaOH additions. While attempting to study affects of pCO2, it became difficult to understand experimental results due to pH variations that affected the pCO2 readings. To better understand the system, Abbott Laboratories media was studied in cell-free experiments to examine how the bicarbonate buffering system works, and how it responds to additions of acids and bases. This lead to the creation of a method to normalize pCO2 with respect to pH. The method was tested at both lab and large scale cell culture.; This method of normalizing pCO2 data, eliminates the most complicated, nonlinear interaction from analysis, resulting in improved data analysis and process troubleshooting with pCO2 related problems.