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Estimation of baculovirus titer based on viable cell size

Abstract

In this paper, a simple and rapid protocol for determination of baculovirus titers based on increasing viable insect cell size/diameter following virus infection is presented. There are different methods available for determining virus titers such as plaque assays end-point dilution, quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction and flow cytometry. However, most of these methods are time consuming and labor intensive. The titer estimation method presented here can be completed in 28 h from start to finish. In this method, the Vi-CELL (Beckman Coulter) was used to measure cell diameter change over a range of virus dilutions, following infection. The cell diameter change data were used to compute the virus titer using a statistical method called the method of moments that we have described previously.

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Figure 1: Step in baculovirus titer based on viable cell size.
Figure 2: Viable infected cell diameter.
Figure 3: Probability estimate of the proportion of infected cells at various virus dilutions.

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Correspondence to Somasekar Seshagiri.

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All the authors hold Genentech Stocks.

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Janakiraman, V., Forrest, W. & Seshagiri, S. Estimation of baculovirus titer based on viable cell size. Nat Protoc 1, 2271–2276 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nprot.2006.387

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