Apoptosis-based method for determining lot sizes in the filling of human-induced pluripotent stem cells

Standardization in process design and operation is needed in the commercial production of human-induced pluripotent stem (hiPS) cells. Lot sizing in the filling of hiPS cells into containers, a part of the preservation process, also needs to be standardized because of the temporal changes in cell quality during the process. Here, we present an apoptosis-based method that can determine lot sizes in the filling of hiPS cells considering temporal changes in cell quality. Two indicators were developed for (i) the cell quality change using reactive oxygen species (ROS) measurement and (ii) the cell survival and probability of filling success, which are parts of the lot-sizing problem. Using computational simulation, a map out of the optimal lot size was produced that minimized the expected production costs at a given cell demand and an acceptable change in cell quality. At a filling temperature of 4°C, the largest possible lot size was calculated as 6 L (corresponding to a filling time of 125 min). The results of a sensitivity analysis recommended cold filling or the addition of an antioxidant. The presented method is effective to determine the lot size considering the change in cell quality during filling. The study uniquely combines the experimental results with mathematical modeling and computational simulation techniques. The map out of the optimal lot size could guide the development of industrial filling processes of hiPS cells.