Gel electrophoretic methods for the analysis of biosimilar pharmaceuticals using the example of recombinant erythropoietin

Due to their versatility and cost-effectiveness, gel electrophoretic methods provide an important set of tools for the analysis of therapeutic proteins. As an increasing number of biosimilar pharmaceuticals are entering the market, techniques are required that allow reliable demonstration of comparability of these products with the reference products. Isoelectric focusing, SDS-PAGE, native PAGE and 2D electrophoresis (2D-PAGE) have been frequently applied for this purpose. Supplementary techniques are fluorophore-assisted carbohydrate electrophoresis and sarcosyl-PAGE. Of additional importance is the comparison of recombinant with endogenously synthesized glycoproteins. Reagent array analysis combined with SDS-PAGE and western blotting proved especially useful for this purpose. As an example for the application of these methods, the analysis of recombinant originator erythropoietins and some of their biosimilar counterparts is described.