Metabolism of avian designer cells during influenza and MVA production

As alternatives to well-established cell lines such as Vero or BHK cultures new designer cells are under consideration for vaccine production. Potential candidates are ProBioGen’s avian cells (AGE1.CR and AGE1.CR.pIX)1. Both cell lines grow in suspension in serum free medium (SFM) and can be productively infected with different influenza strains2 and MVA3. To identify optimal cultivation conditions for vaccine production, the cell lines must be characterized first. Metabolic data together with cell density and virus titers were evaluated in this work for different process conditions involving media (SFM1, SFM2), cultivation vessels (T-flasks, roller bottles, wave bioreactor) and infection conditions. In the following, we present data for the cultivation and infection of both CR and CR.pIX cells with influenza and MVA