HyClone Cell Boost™ 7a: Nutrient Feed for High-Density Mammalian Cell Culture

Fed-batch processes put your medium under real pressure: nutrients become limiting, metabolites accumulate, and cell performance can plateau long before you reach your titer targets. HyClone Cell Boost™ 7a is designed to help you sustain high-density mammalian cultures while keeping your process predictable and consistent.

By supplementing your basal medium with a concentrated, chemically defined feed, you can support robust cell growth and productivity without introducing undefined components. Used correctly, Cell Boost 7a gives you more flexibility in process optimization and scale-up, whether you are working in development labs or GMP environments.

What Is HyClone Cell Boost™ 7a?

When you evaluate a cell culture feed, you care about both composition and control. Cell Boost 7a is a chemically defined, animal-derived component-free supplement that supplies amino acids, vitamins, salts, trace elements and glucose in a concentrated format for convenient feeding into mammalian cell cultures.

The supplement is available as a ready-to-use liquid feed or as a dry powder that you reconstitute before use. It contains poloxamer 188 and is manufactured under cGMP with tight QC specifications, giving you a consistent raw material for regulated processes. Importantly, it does not include proteins, peptides, hydrolysates, growth factors (such as insulin), phenol red, 2-mercaptoethanol, or L-glutamine, helping you maintain a fully defined process design.

At a glance – product profile

• Chemically defined, hydrolysate-free, animal-derived component-free (ADCF) feed
• Provides amino acids, vitamins, salts, trace elements and glucose
• Contains poloxamer 188; does not contain L-glutamine
• Available as dry powder (reconstituted to final volume) and ready-to-use liquid formats
• Manufactured to cGMP with documented quality and regulatory support

Key Application Areas for Cell Boost™ 7a

In practice, you will usually adopt Cell Boost 7a where high-titer recombinant protein production and high-density CHO processes are a priority. The supplement is part of the ActiPro™/ActiSM™ system, optimized for fed-batch workflows using Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cell lines, but it also fits broader mammalian culture applications when you need consistent performance.

Because the feed is chemically defined and ADCF, it is suited to both development and manufacturing environments. You can use it from clone selection and process development through to pilot and production scale, applying the same feed strategy with appropriate optimization at each stage.

Typical use cases

• High-yield monoclonal antibody (mAb) production in CHO fed-batch processes
• Recombinant protein expression for research, diagnostics, or therapeutics
• Late-stage process development and scale-up where raw material consistency is critical
• Academic and early-stage biotech labs are establishing robust CHO production platforms

Related and Complementary Cell Boost™ Feeds

Although you can run a process with Cell Boost 7a alone, you often obtain the best results by combining it with other HyClone feeds that complement its nutrient profile. Cytiva designed Cell Boost 7a and Cell Boost 7b to function together within the ActiPro cell culture system, giving you independent levers for carbon and amino acid supplementation.

This modular approach lets you fine-tune your strategy to each cell line and product. You can adjust feed ratios, timing, and volumes instead of relying on a single “one-size-fits-all” nutrient addition, which simplifies optimization when you change clones, media, or production targets.

How Cell Boost 7a fits into the broader portfolio

Cell Boost 7a

• Broad nutrient supplement with glucose, vitamins, salts, trace elements, and select components
• Designed for CHO fed-batch processes, typically paired with ActiPro or ActiSM basal media

Cell Boost 7b

• Concentrated amino acid feed with alkaline pH
• Used alongside Cell Boost 7a to further enhance protein production and fine-tune amino acid delivery
  

ActiPro/ActiSM media

Chemically defined basal media tailored for high-yield CHO production

Serve as the base for your process, with Cell Boost 7a and 7b providing targeted fed-batch supplementation

How to Use Cell Boost™ 7a in Fed-Batch Cultures

Your exact feeding strategy will depend on your cell line, basal medium, and process goals, but the general principles are consistent. You start with a suitable chemically defined basal medium, grow your culture to a defined cell density, and then initiate Cell Boost 7a feeding according to a predefined schedule or process control strategy.

It is important to implement feed changes stepwise and monitor key parameters such as viable cell density, osmolality, metabolite levels and titer. By making incremental adjustments instead of large jumps in feed volume or frequency, you lower the risk of stressing the culture and can more easily isolate the impact of each change.

Typical implementation workflow

1. Prepare or receive feed

Reconstitute the dry powder supplement according to Cytiva’s instructions for use, or use the ready-to-feed liquid format. Ensure you use purified water, an appropriate temperature, and adequate mixing to achieve a homogeneous solution.

2. Define your feed start point

Choose a trigger based on viable cell density, culture age (for example, day 2–4 after inoculation), or nutrient/metabolite thresholds. Keep this consistent across experiments to generate comparable data.

3. Select feeding mode

Apply Cell Boost 7a as bolus additions, a simple daily feed, or a semi-continuous feed, depending on your reactor type and control capabilities. Many users begin with once-daily additions and refine the schedule as data accumulates.

4. Optimize feed volume and ratio

Start with conservative volumes, then titrate up while monitoring titer, viability, and osmolality. When combined with Cell Boost 7b, you can adjust the ratio between the two feeds to align amino acid delivery with energy and micronutrient supply.

5. Document and lock in your process

Once you identify a robust feeding strategy, document feed composition, timing, volumes and culture responses so you can transfer the process across scales and sites.

Performance Highlights and Case Snapshots

Ultimately, you judge a feed by its impact on culture performance, not just by its composition. Users implementing Cell Boost 7a in CHO fed-batch processes typically report higher viable cell densities, extended culture durations, and improved recombinant protein titers compared with unfed or less optimized processes.

Because the supplement is chemically defined and ADCF, you can also benefit from reduced batch-to-batch variability, which is essential when you move into late-stage development and commercial manufacturing. Consistent feed performance supports more predictable process validation and ongoing process verification.

Illustrative comparison – example trend

Condition	Viable cell density (relative)	Harvest titer (relative)	Notes
Basal medium only (no feed)	1.0	1.0	Reference CHO fed-batch run
Basal + non-optimized generic feed	1.2–1.4	1.3–1.6	Modest improvement, higher variability
Basal + HyClone Cell Boost 7a (±7b)*	1.5–2.0	1.8–2.5	Increased density and titer, more stable*

*Representative of trends reported in Cytiva application data and customer case use; actual gains depend on cell line and process optimization.

These trends underline how a purpose-designed CHO feed can help you reach higher performance ceilings while preserving cell health. With the right process design, you can often pair titer improvements with acceptable product quality attributes such as glycosylation and aggregate levels.

Choosing the Right Cell Boost™ Strategy

When you design or refine your feeding strategy, it helps to match your choice of feeds to your primary goals. If you mainly need to stabilize viability and extend culture duration, a straightforward Cell Boost 7a approach may be sufficient. If your focus is maximum titer or fine control of amino acid supply, combining 7a with 7b usually gives you more options.

You should also consider operational factors such as the available storage temperature (2–8 °C for liquid formats), mixing capabilities for powder reconstitution, and your team’s familiarity with chemically defined processes. Aligning these practical constraints with your performance targets makes it easier to choose a strategy you can maintain over time.

Quick selection guide

• Start with Cell Boost 7a alone if:
  • You are transitioning from an unfed or minimally fed process
  • Your primary objective is to stabilize growth and improve baseline titers
  • You want to keep the feed design simple during the early development stages
• Combine Cell Boost 7a + 7b if:
  • You are optimizing an existing CHO fed-batch platform for higher productivity
  • You need independent control over amino acid delivery versus other nutrients
  • You are preparing for late-stage development and wish to lock in a high-yield process
• Pair with ActiPro / ActiSM media if:
  • You prefer a fully harmonized media and feed system from a single supplier
  • You want to minimize variability related to mismatched basal and feed formulations

Resources, Documentation & Ordering Information

To implement Cell Boost 7a with confidence, you will likely want access to detailed documents as well as clear ordering options. Cytiva provides instructions for use, safety data sheets (SDS), and technical notes that describe reconstitution steps, stability, storage, and application examples, all of which can support your internal documentation and regulatory filings.

You can choose between powder and liquid formats and select a pack size that fits your development labs, pilot runs, or large-scale manufacturing. The table below summarizes commonly used HyClone Cell Boost 7a SKUs and volumes, based on Cytiva’s official catalog information.

HyClone Cell Boost™ 7a – selected SKUs

Format	Final volume (after reconstitution for powder)	Cytiva product code
Dry powder supplement	1 L	SH31026.07
Dry powder supplement	5 L	SH31026.01
Dry powder supplement	10 L	SH31026.02
Dry powder supplement	25 L	SH31026.03
Liquid supplement (bottle)	500 mL	SH31119.01
Liquid supplement (bottle)	1000 mL	SH31119.02
Liquid supplement (bag)	1 L	SH31119.03
Liquid supplement (bag)	5 L	SH31119.04
Liquid supplement (bag)	10 L	SH31119.05
Liquid supplement (bag)	20 L	SH31119.06