Laboratory scaleup of cell cultures (0.5-50 liters)

With the modern tools of molecular and cell biology now available, many researchers find the need to scale up cell culture in order to produce large quantities of cells or conditioned medium for the further purification of proteins or subcellular fractions. The method used for scaleup will depend on the properties of the cell being used, the amount of material desired, the number of times the process is to be run, and the resources available. Roller bottles, microcarrier cultures, and hollow fiber cultures provide appropriate and scaleable growth systems for attachment-dependent cells. However, the most efficient production of material, especially if the large-scale production is to be repeated several times, is obtained by suspension adapting the cells and growing them in suspension. This can be done in spinners or in fermenters, which range in size from 0.1 to 12,000 liters in volume. This chapter describes methods for choosing the optimal production system and medium for scaling up to different levels of production and for suspension adapting cells for scaleup of suspension culture.