00 log10; MEV=5.29 log10) was observed at the lowest pH tested and virus removal increased as the pH increased (Table 2). However, even at the lowest pH an effective removal of PPV by 4 log10 was demonstrated. Solvent/detergent virus inactivation of enveloped

viruses has been used to produce safe plasma products selleckchem since 1985 when it was licensed in the manufacture of factor VIII, a product that carried a high risk of transmitting blood-borne viruses in the past, before specific virus inactivation steps were introduced. In 1985 and before, Horowitz and his group reported that the solvent/detergent process was an effective virus inactivation process for plasma derivatives, including IGIV [5], [6], [7] and [8]. Subsequently, virus inactivation by solvent/detergent was incorporated into other products [9], [10] and [11]. S/D treatment in this study was performed at worst case conditions, i.e. reduced concentrations

of TNBP and Triton X-100 (0.2% and 0.8% instead of 0.3% and 1.0%), reduced temperature of 25.5 °C (instead of 28 °C) and short incubation time of 2 h. In addition, the pH was increased to neutral range. Inactivation of enveloped viruses by S/D is fast and inactivation below the limit of detection is achieved after few minutes of treatment (Fig. 2). The S/D inactivation data reported in this study confirm the robust inactivation of enveloped viruses reported in the literature for IGIV and other plasma derivatives [12]. Low pH is not a designated Selleckchem EPZ-6438 virus inactivation step in the production process of Biotest IGIV. However, several steps in the production process are performed at low pH, e.g. S/D treatment. The potential influence of low pH on virus inactivation during S/D treatment was investigated. Testing was done using the same conditions as for S/D treatment but without the addition of S/D reagents. The protein concentration was elevated, the temperature was lowered to 25.5 °C and the pH was adjusted to Lonafarnib in vitro the upper production limit of pH 4.5. As shown in Table 1, PRV and Sindbis virus were inactivated by 3.2 log10 and 4.91 log10, respectively (Fig. 3). Not inactivated at pH 4.50 were

BVDV and MEV. Inactivation of the other test viruses (no kinetics tested) ranged from <1 to 2.43 log10. Low pH inactivation was first observed by Reid et al. in 1988 [13], who reported that enveloped viruses such as Vaccinia, herpes simplex (HSV), mumps and Semliki Forest virus (SFV) were inactivated by pepsin treatment at pH 4. The data were confirmed by Kempf and others [14], [15] and [16]. The data in this study confirm previous observations that incubation of IgG solutions at low pH inactivates some enveloped viruses but is less effective or even ineffective for non-enveloped viruses. Virus filtration is a simple, robust, non-destructive process that adds size exclusion to conventional virus inactivation and partitioning procedures.