Novel Chemically Defined, Animal Component Free Medium For Vero Cells And Virus Production For Human And Animal Vaccines

By Roni Hazan Brill, Emilie Rodrigues, Gerco van Eikenhorst, Mira Genser-Nir, Sharon Daniliuc, Marina Tevrovsky, Bella Monica, Yvonne Thomassen, David Fiorentini

Vero cells are used for various purposes, most importantly for the production of cell culture-based viral vaccines. The cell line is among a very limited list of cell lines that have been approved by health  authorities for the production of human vaccines. Vero cells are increasingly used in the production of approved human vaccines protecting against viral infections such as rabies, rotavirus, Japanese Encephalitis and Poliomyelitis. When scale-up is required, Vero cells can be cultured on micro-carrier beads in bioreactors using the appropriate culture medium. Currently available media contain a vast amount of undefined polypeptides or animal derived proteins that may result in batch to batch variations, as well as an increased potential for contamination with adventitious agents and therefore increase the risk for safety issues.

Here, we examine a chemically defined, serum-free, animal-component free NutriVero™ Flex 10 medium that demonstrated excellent results in Vero cell growth and virus yield in both 2D and 3D culture systems.