Process intensification of EB66® cell cultivations leads to high-yield yellow fever and Zika virus production

A live-attenuated, human vaccine against mosquito-borne yellow fever virus has been available since the 1930s. The vaccine provides long-lasting immunity and consistent mass vaccination campaigns counter viral spread. However, traditional egg-based vaccine manufacturing requires about 12 months and vaccine supplies are chronically close to shortages. In particular, for urban outbreaks, vaccine demand can be covered rarely by global stockpiling. Thus, there is an urgent need for an improved vaccine production platform, ideally transferable to other flaviviruses including Zika virus. Here, we present a proof-of-concept study regarding cell culture-based yellow fever virus 17D (YFV) and wild-type Zika virus (ZIKV) production using duck embryo-derived EB66® cells. Based on comprehensive studies in shake flasks, 1-L bioreactor systems were operated with scalable hollow fiber-based tangential flow filtration (TFF) and alternating tangential flow filtration (ATF) perfusion systems for process intensification. EB66® cells grew in chemically defined medium to cell concentrations of 1.6 × 108 cells/mL. Infection studies with EB66®-adapted virus led to maximum YFV titers of 7.3 × 108 PFU/mL, which corresponds to about 10 million vaccine doses for the bioreactor harvest. For ZIKV, titers of 1.0 × 1010 PFU/mL were achieved. Processes were automated successfully using a capacitance probe to control perfusion rates based on on-line measured cell concentrations. The use of cryo-bags for direct inoculation of production bioreactors facilitates pre-culture preparation contributing to improved process robustness. In conclusion, this platform is a powerful option for next generation cell culture-based flavivirus vaccine manufacturing.