Plasmid Stability in Long-Term hG-CSF Production Using $_{L}-Arbinose$ Promoter System of Escherichia coli

To examine the feasibility of the long-term production of the human granulocyte colony stimulating factor (hG-CSF) using the $_{L}-arabinose$ promoter system of Escherichia coli, flask relay culture and cyclic fed-batch culture were performed. In the flask relay culture, it was found that the pismid was maintained stably up to about 170 generations in an uninduced condition, whereby the cells could also maintain the capability of expressing hG-CSF expression were maintained stably up to at least 100 generations. In contrast, in the cyclid fed-batch culture, segregational plasmid instability was observed within about 4 generations after induction, even though the cell growth and hG-CSF production reached their maximum balues, 78.0 g/l of dry cell weight and 7.0 g/l of hG-CSF, respectively. It would appear that, when compared to the flask relay culture, the high-cell density and high-level expression of hG-CSF in the cyclic fed-batch cultrure led to the segregational plasmid instability; in other words, a severe metabolic burden existe on the cells due to the high-level expression of hG-CSF. Accordingly, based on these long-term cultures, the segregational and structural plasmid instability was observed and a strategy to overcome such problems could be designed.