Scale-Up Production of Type O and A Foot-and-Mouth Disease Bivalent Vaccine and Its Protective Efficacy in Pigs

South Korea has experienced FMD outbreaks almost every year since 2014. Therefore, a novel local vaccine that can cover various topotypes of viruses is required. Two virus strains, O/Boeun/SKR/2017 and A/Yeoncheon/SKR/2017, were cultured up to the pilot scale based on the optimized conditions set up on the flask scale. FMDV particles (146S) of 2 µg/mL or more were obtained from the virus culture supernatant using a 100 L bioreactor. The viruses were fully inactivated using binary ethylenimine within 16 h through two inactivation cycles and mixed with an adjuvant into a bivalent vaccine (types O and A) consisting of 15 µg viruses per strain. The experimental bivalent vaccine showed a broad spectrum of high neutralizing antibody titers against heterologous viruses, including type O Cathay strain and type A Asia topotypes, except for GVII. The 50% protective dose was determined as 12.5 for O/Boeun/SKR/2017 and 15.6 for A/Yeoncheon/SKR/2017. Collectively, we expect that the bivalent vaccine could protect against FMDV types O and A circulating in South Korea and neighboring countries. To our knowledge, this is the first report demonstrating that the vaccine strains could be successfully scaled-up to a 100 L bioreactor, with the determination of its protective efficacy in pigs.