Effect of ammonia production on intracellular pH: Consequent effect on adenovirus vector production

Abstract Recombinant adenoviral vectors (AdV) have proven to be highly efficient for the delivery and expression of foreign genes in a broad spectrum of cell types and species both for vaccination and gene therapy in a number of specific applications. In this study, the effect of ammonia production on intracellular pH (pH i ) and consequently inhibition of AdV production at high cell densities is assessed. Different specific ammonia production rates were obtained for 293 cells adapted to grow in glutamate supplemented medium (non-ammoniagenic medium) as compared with 293 cells growing in glutamine supplemented medium (ammoniagenic medium); pH i was observed to be lower during cell growth and AdV production at both high and low CCI in the ammoniagenic medium, where the specific ammonia production rate is higher. In addition, after infection at CCI of 3 × 10 6  cell/ml, the cell viability decreased significantly in the ammoniagenic medium, attributed to the activation of an acidic pathway of apoptosis. Furthermore, AdV DNA was observed to be degraded at the observed pH i in the ammoniagenic medium, decreasing significantly the amount of AdV DNA available for encapsulation. To elucidate the pH i effect upon AdV production, 293 cells were infected at a CCI of 1 × 10 6  cell/ml in the non-ammoniagenic medium with a manipulated pH i as observed at the time of infection at CCI of 3 × 10 6  cell/ml in the ammoniagenic (pH i 7.0) and non-ammoniagenic (pH i 7.3) media; AdV volumetric productivities were observed to be lower when the cells were exposed to the lower pH i . Thus, the importance of controlling all the factors contributing to pH i on AdV production, such as ammonia production, has been established.