Production of a chimeric porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV)-2 vaccine using a lab-scale packed-bed bioreactor CelCradle.

Background: We developed a MARC-145 cell culture and porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) vaccine production using a novel CelCradle bioreactor. CelCradle is a packed-bed bioreactor capable of both batch and perfusion culture, and the operating parameters are easy to optimize.

Results: In this study, CelCradle reached a maximum cell density of 8.94 × 10 cells/mL at 5 days post-seeding when seeded at 8.60 × 10 cells/mL (doubling time = 35.52 h). Inoculation of PRRS vaccine candidate, K418DM1.1, was performed at a multiplicity of infection (MOI) of 0.01 at 5 days post-seeding, which resulted in a high viral titer of 2.04 × 10 TCID/mL and total viral load of 1.02 × 10 TCID/500 mL at 2 days post-infection (dpi). The multilayer cultivation system, BioFactory culture, yielded a higher doubling time (37.14 h) and lower viral titer (i.e., 8.15 × 10 TCID/mL) compared to the CelCradle culture. Thus, the culture medium productivity of the CelCradle culture was 2-fold higher than that of the BioFactory culture. In the animal experiment, the CelCradle-produced vaccine induced high levels of neutralizing antibodies and effectively protected pigs against homologous challenge, as shown by the significantly lower levels of viremia at 1- and 7-days post-challenge (dpc) compared to the non-vaccinated pigs.

Conclusions: Overall, this study demonstrates that the CelCradle system is an economical platform for PRRS vaccine production.