ABSTRACT
Mammalian cell suspension culture systems are being used increasingly in the biotechnology industry. Large-scale suspension culture based on microbial fermentation technology has clear advantages for the manufacture of mammalian cell products. The development of suspension culture methods took place in the 1950s. Consequently, by the 1960s suspension culture was the technology chosen for large-scale production of veterinary vaccines, especially foot-and-mouth disease vaccine. The technology has received fresh impetus from the use of continuous cell lines to produce natural products such as interferon and, more recently, monoclonal antibodies and proteins produced by recombinant DNA technology. One of the great advantages of suspension culture is the opportunity it provides to study interactions of metabolic and production phenomena in chemostat or turbidostat steady-state systems. Furthermore, in suspension culture systems from which cell number and cell mass measurements are easy to obtain, rigorous and quantitative estimations of the effects of growth conditions or perturbations of metabolic homeostasis can be made.
