The use of Raman spectroscopy coupled with chemometrics for the rapid
identification, characterization, and quality assessment of complex cell
culture media components used for industrial mammalian cell culture was
investigated. Raman spectroscopy offers significant advantages for the
analysis of complex, aqueous-based materials used in biotechnology
because there is no need for sample preparation and water is a weak
Raman scatterer. We demonstrate the efficacy of the method for the
routine analysis of dilute aqueous solution of five different chemically
defined (CD) commercial media components used in a Chinese Hamster
Ovary (CHO) cell manufacturing process for recombinant proteins.The
chemometric processing of the Raman spectral data is the key factor in
developing robust methods. Here, we discuss the optimum methods for
eliminating baseline drift, background fluctuations, and other
instrumentation artifacts to generate reproducible spectral data.
Principal component analysis (PCA) and soft independent modeling of
class analogy (SIMCA) were then employed in the development of a robust
routine for both identification and quality evaluation of the five
different media components. These methods have the potential to be
extremely useful in an industrial context for “in-house” sample
handling, tracking, and quality control.