An African swine fever (ASF) virus vaccine candidate has been adapted to grow in a cell line, which means those involved in vaccine production will no longer have to rely on live pigs and their fresh cells for vaccine production, the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) announced on May 6.
“This opens the door for large-scale vaccine production, which is a valuable tool for the possible eradication of the virus,” senior ARS scientist Manuel Borca, DVM, said in the release.
This discovery, highlighted in the Journal of Virology, overcomes a major challenge for ASF virus vaccine manufacturing.
“The newly developed vaccine, grown in a continuous cell line — which means immortalized cells that divide continuously or otherwise indefinitely — has the same characteristics as the original vaccine produced with fresh swine cells,” USDA said in a release.
The continuous cell line vaccine candidate was tested in a commercial breed of pigs, was found to be safe and protected the pigs against the virus. No negative effects were observed, USDA reports.
“Traditionally we used freshly isolated swine cells to produce vaccine candidates and this constitutes a significant limitation for large-scale production” senior ARS scientist Douglas Gladue, DVM, said in a release. “But now we can retain the vaccine characteristics while simultaneously replicating the vaccine in lab-grown cell cultures. We no longer have to rely on gathering fresh cells from live swine.”
Although, ASF is not a threat to humans and poses no risk to the food supply, it is known to cause virulent, deadly outbreaks in wild and domestic swine, causing widespread and lethal outbreaks in various countries in Eastern Europe and throughout Asia. These outbreaks have led to significant economic losses and pork shortages on local and global scales.
With no commercial vaccine currently available to prevent the virus from spreading, researchers are furiously testing vaccine candidates and looking for ways to bring a viable vaccine to the industry.
The U.S. has not experienced an outbreak of ASF, but experts predict an outbreak could cost at least $14 billion over two years and $50 billion over 10 years, USDA reports.
This research was supported in part by an interagency agreement between the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Some of the scientific personnel were part of the Plum Island Animal Disease Center Research Participation Program, administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education. All animal studies were performed at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, following a protocol approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee.
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