A new(ish) paper in Science Signaling illustrates how autophagy in cell cultures may be masquerading as apoptosis. Pfizer scientists working with researchers at Rutgers University and the Cancer Institute of New Jersey found “a direct link between glutamine (Gln) metabolism and autophagic activity in both transformed and nontransformed human cells.” It seems to be related to ammonia resulting from the Gln deamination in secondary culture conditions. I’m not sure whether Gln is often found in the media used for cell therapy cultures (whether autologous or not), but I’ve certainly seen it quite often in discussions of recombinant therapeutic production. L-glutamine is used as an additive to some production cell cultures, if not a common one — especially as a supplement to serum-free media.

So when I saw this commentary from Prof. Jean Wang at UCSD this morning, my first thought was “Whoah... What does that mean to bioprocessing?” We’d sure love to hear your thoughts. Anyone doing a study with a production cell line/process? Did this new paper give you an “Aha!” moment, helping to explain an issue in your own work? Have you seen similar results in your own cultures? Or is it more of an academic concern? Does it really matter to you how cells are dying (autophagy or apoptosis) — or only that they’re dying? And is there an alternative to L-glutamine that might help prevent such problems?

Drop us a note if you’d like to share your results and/or advice with your fellow BPI readers.

—Cheryl Scott, senior technical editor