With various diseases ravaging internationally, the demands for recombinant adenoviral vector (Adv) vaccines have increased dramatically. To meet the demand for Adv vaccine, development of a new cell culture process is an effective strategy. Applying hyperosmotic stress in cells before virus infection could increase the yield of Adv in batch culture mode. Emerging perfusion culture can significantly increase the yield of Adv as well. Therefore, combining the hyperosmotic stress process with perfusion culture is expected to improve the yield of Adv at high cell density. In this study, a shake flask combined with a semi-perfusion culture was used as a scaled-down model for bioreactor perfusion culture. Media with osmotic pressure ranging from 300 to 405 mOsm were used to study the effect of hyperosmotic stress on cell growth and Adv production. The results showed that using a perfusion culture process with a hyperosmotic pressure medium (370 mOsm) during the cell growth phase and an isosmotic pressure medium (300 mOsm) during the virus production phase effectively increased the yield of Adv. This might be due to the increased expression of HSP70 protein during the late phases of virus replication. The Adv titer in a bioreactor with such a process reached 3.2×1010 IFU/mL, three times higher than that of the traditional perfusion culture process. More importantly, this is the first time that a strategy of combining the hyperosmotic stress process with perfusion culture is applied to the production of Adv in HEK 293 cells. It also reveals the reason why the hyperosmotic stress process increased the yield of Adv, which may facilitate the process optimization of for producing other Adv in HEK 293 cells.
Keywords: HEK 293 cells; adenovirus vector; hyperosmotic stress; perfusion culture.