Integrated autolysis, DNA hydrolysis and precipitation enables an improved bioprocess for Q-Griffithsin, a broad-spectrum antiviral and clinical-stage anti-COVID-19 candidate

Across the biomanufacturing industry, innovations are needed to improve efficiency and flexibility, especially in the face of challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Here we report an improved bioprocess for Q-Griffithsin, a broad-spectrum antiviral currently in clinical trials for COVID-19. Q-Griffithsin is produced at high titer in E. coli and purified to anticipated clinical grade without conventional chromatography or the need for any fixed downstream equipment. The process is thus both low-cost and highly flexible, facilitating low sales prices and agile modifications of production capacity, two key features for pandemic response. The simplicity of this process is enabled by a novel unit operation that integrates cellular autolysis, autohydrolysis of nucleic acids, and contaminant precipitation, giving essentially complete removal of host cell DNA as well as reducing host cell proteins and endotoxin by 3.6 and 2.4 log(10) units, respectively. This unit operation can be performed rapidly and in the fermentation vessel, such that Q-GRFT is obtained with 100% yield and > 99.9% purity immediately after fermentation and requires only a flow-through membrane chromatography step for further contaminant removal. Using this operation or variations of it may enable improved bioprocesses for a range of other high-value proteins in E. coli.