Efficient chromatographic reduction of ovalbumin for egg-based influenza virus purification

Abstract

Vaccination is the most effective prevention strategy to avoid influenza infection and for protection of large populations. The vast majority of influenza vaccines are still produced with allantoic fluid from fertilized chicken eggs. The presence of ovalbumin, which can constitute over 60% of the total protein content in allantoic fluid, can result in severe allergies. Consequently, efficient reduction of ovalbumin is critical during egg based vaccine manufacturing. Here we present Capto Core 700, a novel core bead chromatographic flow through mode resin for removal of ovalbumin and compare it to sucrose zonal gradient ultracentrifugation, which is the industry standard for egg-based vaccine production. The results demonstrate that core bead chromatography is fully comparable to zonal centrifugation in removing ovalbumin to meet regulatory requirements. Furthermore, the scalability and the shorter process times of this method have the potential to significantly improve the productivity and economy for industrial production compared to zonal centrifugation.

Keywords: Allantoic fluid; Core bead chromatography; Influenza; Ovalbumin; Ultracentrifugation.