Monitoring the biomass accumulation of recombinant yeast cultures: Offline estimations of dry cell mass and cell counts

Abstract

Biomass is one of the most important parameters for process optimization, scale-up and control in recombinant protein production experiments. However, a standard unit of biomass remains elusive. Methods of biomass monitoring have increasingly been developed towards online, in situ techniques in order to advance process analysis and control. Offline, ex situ methods, such as dry cell mass determination and direct cell counts, remain the reference for determining cell mass and number, respectively, but this type of analysis is time consuming. In this chapter, protocols are presented for determining these offline measures of the biomass yield of recombinant yeast cultures. © 2012 Springer Science+business Media, LLC.