Validation of an HPLC method for the analysis of the charge heterogeneity of the recombinant monoclonal antibody IDEC-C2B8 after papain digestion

An HPLC procedure was validated for determining the purity with respect to the charge variant distribution of the recombinant monoclonal antibody (MAb) IDEC-C2B8 by high-performance ion-exchange chromatography. Papain was used to fragment the molecule into Fab and Fc fragments prior to chromatographic analysis. Fragmentation allowed the resolution of the variants arising from the cyclization of glutamine to pyroglutamate at the amino-terminus of the light and heavy chains (Fab-pE/Q variants) from the variants resulting from the processing of the carboxy-terminal lysine residues of the heavy chains (Fc-Lys variants). The assay demonstrated good linearity, yielding correlation coefficients of >0.99 for total protein, Fc-Lys variants and Fab-pE/Q variants. Recovery of total protein from the column was 95.7%. Sample recovery studies demonstrated a mean accuracy of 102% for a Fab fragment over the range 2–10% of the total protein. The limit of detection was 0.2 μg and 0.1 μg for Fc and Fab variants, respectively. The repeatability of the assay and intermediate precision had relative standard deviation (RSD) values of <1%. Parameters of the papain digest (time, digest stability, reagent stability, pH and papain vendor) and of the chromatography (mobile phase pH, stability, buffer concentration, and column lot and aging) were evaluated for robustness and determined to be acceptable. Data are presented demonstrating the suitability of the assay for determining the product purity of a recombinant MAb.