Changes of protein solutions during storage: a study of albumin pharmaceutical preparations

During the production of air-filled albumin microspheres, to be used as an ultrasound contrast agent, it was observed that some albumin lots could not be used owing to albumin precipitation. In order to understand the reason for these lot-to-lot variations, 24 lots of 5% (w/v) human albumin pharmaceutical preparations were analysed. The results revealed that the good albumin lots all contained <0.03 mol of free SH groups per mol of albumin. The precipitation observed with other lots was most probably due to higher amounts of free SH groups. The lower amount of free SH groups in the good lots correlated with: (i) a yellow colour of the solutions and a UV-visible spectrum similar to that observed for non-enzymatic glycosylation; (ii) a decreased fructosamine content; (iii) an increased mobility against the anode in isoelectric focusing; and (iv) an increased truncation of the two N-terminal amino acids. No, or only small, differences were observed for the amounts of albumin dimer, albumin aggregates and protein impurities, and these could not account for the albumin precipitation. The differences observed between the albumin lots were most probably due to varying storage times and/or storage conditions, and incubation experiments revealed changes in all parameters that differed between the good and bad lots. Increasing the storage temperature or exposing the solutions to light resulted in a faster decrease of free SH groups and increase of the yellow colouration. It is likely that at least some of the changes observed were due to reactive degradation products formed from the stabilizer N-acetyl-L-tryptophan. The results presented should also be of interest regarding the storage of monoclonal antibodies and other proteins used in pharmaceuticals.