What are the key considerations to optimizing viral vector production?

Optimizing viral vector production requires an efficient and high-throughput cell culture workflow, ideally one that can be easily scaled-up as demand requires. Not only does efficient cell culture allow the production of larger viral quantities, but it also decreases the potential for variability and contamination between viral batches.¹ A second key consideration is the selection of the production cell line. The cells used to produce virus should not require complex culture conditions and they should be easily transduced/infected. Both stable and transient transductions can be employed for viral production. While stably transduced cell lines are more ideal as virus-producing factories, not all cell lines continue to produce high titers post-expansion, and some gene products required for vector generation can be cytotoxic.¹ In these situations, transient expression may preserve cellular integrity and function for subsequent rounds of short-term viral production.

Reference:
1. J.C.M. van der Loo and J.F. Wright, “Progress and challenges in viral vector manufacturing,” Hum Mol Genet 25(R1): R42-R52, 2016.