Assessment of Bordetella pertussis Strain 509 Cell Mass Yield in Baffle and Vortex Mode of Agitation during Large Scale Industrial Fermentor Cultivation Shivanandappa KC 1* , Mani KR 2,3 , Jagannathan S 4 and Vijayakumar R 5 1Pertussis Vaccine Production Division, Pasteur Institute of India, The Nilgiris, Tamilnadu 643103, India 2Former Deputy Director, Pasteur Institute of India, Coonoor, The Nilgiris, Tamilnadu 643103, India 3Former Director, Central Research Institute, Kasauli, Solan, Himachal Pradesh 173204, India 4Tissue Culture Anti-Rabies Vaccine Section (TCARV), Pasteur Institute of India, Coonoor, The Nilgiris, Tamilnadu 643103, India 5Department of Biochemistry, North Eastern Hill University, Shillong, Meghalaya 793 022, India * Corresponding author: Shivanandappa KC, Pertussis vaccine production Division, Pasteur Institute of India, The Nilgiris, Tamilnadu 643103, India, Tel : +91 9789327696; E-mail: shivasham_27@yahoo.co.in Rec date: November 16, 2014, Acc date: January 20, 2015, Pub date: January 27, 2015 Copyright: © 2015 Shivanandappa KC. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Abstract The effect of baffle and vortex agitation system on B. pertussis vaccine strain 509 growth yield was examined in industrial fermentor cultivation used single turbine impeller fixed at the bottom of vessel, which has the provision of growth of the organism under controlled conditions with regard to temperature, pH, aeration and agitation. From this study it was found that the use of baffled system shows lesser the growth yield of B. pertussis (strain 509) due to the excessive froth accumulation on the surface of the culture which deplete the oxygen supply could minimizes the cell biomass/growth yield. Whereas remarkable increased in the biomass yield was observed in the vortex mode of agitation due to vortex flow supports homogenous mixing and good aeration for bacterial growth could enhance final growth yield at the end of 48 hours of cultivation as a result of vortex mode, the effective yield of the fermentor culture was increased up to two fold times, whereas the remarkable increased in the growth yield was observed, due to swirl flow pattern of culture agitation supports homogenous mixing and good aeration for bacterial growth. Therefore vortex system of agitation can be industrially used for the production of whole cell B. Pertussis (strain 509) vaccine to obtain good yield. Keywords: Fermentor; Baffle; Vortex; Pertussis; Growth rate Abbreviations: wP: Whole Cell Pertussis; BGM: Bordet Gangou Media; lpm: Liter Per Minute; rpm: Rotation Per Minute; DO2: Dissolved Oxygen; IOU: International Opacity Unit; IRP- International Reference Pertussis Introduction Pertussis is a highly contagious disease caused by the bacterial pathogen Bordetella pertussis. World-wide there are 30-50 million pertussis cases and about 300000 deaths per year [1]. Most of deaths occurs in young infants who are either unvaccinated or incompletely vaccinated. Widespread vaccination of children reduced the incidence of illness and deaths caused by pertussis [2]. However globally pertussis remains one of the top 10 causes of death in children [3]. Further, in the 1990s a resurgence of pertussis was observed in several countries with highly vaccinated populations [2,4] and pertussis has become the most prevalent vaccine-preventable disease in industrialized countries. Use of killed whole-cell Bordetella pertussis vaccines has been a major factor in control of symptomatic whooping cough. Whole cell pertussis (wP) vaccines have been used worldwide as part of combined DTP vaccine in national childhood immunization programmes for 4 decades. Although concerns about possible adverse events following their administration have led to adoption of acellular pertussis vaccines (ACPV) in some countries, whole cell pertussis vaccines are still widely produced and used globally in both developed and developing countries. Whole cell pertussis vaccine that comply with WHO requirements, administered in an optimal schedule have a long and successful record in the control of whooping cough. ACPV vaccines consist of 1-8 B. pertussis protein virulence factors such as Pertussis Toxin (PT) Filamentous Heamagglutinin (FHA) Fimbriae, Pertactin (PRN) Tracheal Colonization Factor (TCF) Adenylate cyclase toxin (ACT) Heat-labile toxin (HLT) and Tracheal cytotoxin (TCT), in order to produce an acellular vaccine, the cultivation step is followed by extensive purification procedures. For both vaccine types a high yield of virulence factors per unit biomass produced is desirable, since more vaccine doses per production run can be obtained leading to lower costs. For cellular vaccines a higher yield of virulence factors per unit biomass is even more important, since the amount of Lypopolysacharides (LPS) per dose can be lowered, which is likely to result in less adverse reactions. In addition to a high yield, it is important for cellular vaccines (wP) all virulence factors produced remain cell associated, since the culture supernatant is discarded. The production of whole cell pertussis vaccine in large scale cultivation method using fermentor depends on the standardization of fermentor parameters such as temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, aeration, and agitation. The growth, virulence property and metabolism of pertussis bacteria in fermentor culture vessel depends on various designed parameters of fermentor used for pertussis cultivation [5]. Bacteriology & Parasitology Shivanandappa et al., J Bacteriol Parasitol 2015, 6:1 http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2155-9597.1000214 Research Article Open Access J Bacteriol Parasitol ISSN:2155-9597 JBP, an open access journal Volume 6 • Issue 1 • 1000214