Efficient Expansion of Suspension CHO Cells in Corning® 5 Liter Erlenmeyer Flasks

By Zara Melkoumian, Ph.D. and Lori Romeo, Corning Incorporated, Life Sciences

Erlenmeyer flasks are commonly used for expansion of a variety of suspension cell lines for bioprocessing applications. Corning provides disposable Erlenmeyer flasks ranging from 125 mL to 3L in size. Corning has developed a 5L Erlenmeyer flask with the same footprint as a traditional 3L Erlenmeyer flask.

The 5L shape has been optimized for increased gas exchange compared to the more traditional Erlenmeyer flask designs. Due to gas exchange limitations, most traditionally shaped Erlenmeyer flasks can only accommodate approximately one third of the stated volume of the vessel during culture. Corning’s 5L shape design allows for the culture volume to be increased to one half of the stated volume of the flask, resulting in a greater number of cells cultured in the same footprint as a 3L flask.

In this study, we describe a protocol to scale up suspension CHO cells from 40 mL to 15L of total volume in just 12 days using Corning 5L Erlenmeyer flasks. Furthermore, we demonstrate that Corning 5L Erlenmeyer flasks provide a more favorable culture environment (higher oxygenation and lower lactate metabolite accumulation) and support a higher yield of viable CHO cells when compared to competitor 5L Erlenmeyer flasks.