Abstract
The purification of virus particles and viral vectors for vaccine and gene therapy applications is gaining increasing importance in order to deliver a fast, efficient, and reliable production process. Ultrafiltration (UF) is a widely employed unit operation in bioprocessing and its use is present in several steps of the downstream purification train of biopharmaceuticals. However, to date few studies have thoroughly investigated the performance of several membrane materials and cut-offs for virus concentration/diafiltration. The present study aimed at developing a novel class of UF cassettes for virus concentration/diafiltration. A detailed study was conducted to evaluate the effects of (i) membrane materials, namely polyethersulfone (PES), regenerated cellulose (RC), and highly cross-linked RC (xRC), (ii) nominal cut-off, and (iii) UF device geometry at different production scales. The results indicate that the xRC cassettes with a cut-off of approximately 500 kDa are able to achieve a 10-fold concentration factor with 100% recovery of particles with a process time twice as fast as that of a commercially available hollow fiber. DNA and host cell protein clearances, as well as hydraulic permeability and fouling behavior, were also assessed.
Highlights
Viruses and virus like particles (VLP) are playing an increasingly important role in the vaccine gene and cell therapy fields
The present study aimed to develop a novel class of UF cassettes for adenovirus type 5 (Ad5) concentration/diafiltration
This work presented an in-depth characterization of several ultrafiltration membranes
Summary
Viruses and virus like particles (VLP) are playing an increasingly important role in the vaccine gene and cell therapy fields. The use of recombinant Ads for vaccination and gene therapy requires fast and highly efficient purification protocols that yield high recovery of infectious particles, maintain viral infectivity, and effectively remove contaminating DNA and host cell proteins, while concentrating the viral samples for final delivery. The volumetric concentration and buffer exchange of virus bulks are critical to obtain high titer vector stocks in the proper formulation buffer, and to reduce the handled volume; the latter accelerates the downstream processing and keeps the scalability of the purification train at a manageable level [9]
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