We are pleased to announce that a successful collaboration between glyXera and the Department of Biosciences at the University of Salzburg and the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Innovative Tools for Biosimilar Characterization at the University of Salzburg resulted in publishing an article inside the International Journal of Molecular Sciences titled “Simultaneous Monitoring of Monoclonal Antibody Variants by Strong Cation-Exchange Chromatography Hyphenated to Mass Spectrometry to Assess Quality Attributes of Rituximab-Based Biotherapeutics” as part of the special issue MS-Based Protein Specific Analysis.

For recombinantly produced therapeutic glycoproteins a plethora of glycoforms with significantly different physicochemical properties may arise between theoretically identical or at least similar biological drug products. Caused by different manufacturing processes and storage conditions, posttranslational modifications, particularly glycosylation, can vary considerably. To ensure proper product quality and function, glycosylation is recognized as one of the most critical quality attributes. In this joint publication we combined different analytical methods to compare the glycosylation of two rituximab-based biotherapeutics: the originator MabThera® and its biosimilar Reditux™. The detailed structural elucidation of their N-glycomes by xCGE-LIF built the basis for subsequent mass spectrometry-based site-specific glycoanalyses on the intact protein and glycopeptide levels.

This joint study demonstrates not only the power of combining sophisticated glycoanalytical methods to characterize and compare recombinantly produced therapeutic glycoproteins with respect to their glycosylation, but also the absolute necessity to do so.

The article is published open access and can be read in full on the publication web page: https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/22/16/9072

If you would like to learn more about our range of xCGE-LIF-based glycoanalytical products, including glyXboxCE, glyXprep, and glyXtoolCE, and about their many possible applications, please feel free to get in touch.