title: Study of robustness of filamentous bacteriophages for industrial applications.
abstract: The development of a whole new class of industrial agents, such as biologically based nanomaterials and viral vectors, has raised many challenges for their large-scale manufacture, principally due to the lack of essential physical data and bioprocessing knowledge. A new example is the promise of filamentous bacteriophages and their derivatives. As a result, there is now an increasing need for the establishment of strong biochemical engineering foundations to serve as a guide for future manufacture. This article investigates the effect of high-energy fluid flow on filamentous bacteriophage M13 to determine its robustness for large-scale processing. By the application of well-understood ultra scale-down predictive techniques, the viability of bacteriophage M13 was studied as a measure of its robustness and as a function of energy dissipation rate and fluid conditions. These experiments suggested that despite being perceived as a relatively fragile molecule in the literature, bacteriophage M13 should tolerate processing conditions in existing large-scale equipment designs. No loss of viability was noted up to a maximum energy dissipation rate of 2.9 × 10(6)  W kg(-1) . Furthermore, significant losses above this threshold only occurred over periods well in excess of the exposure times expected in a bioprocess environment. Filamentous bacteriophages may therefore be regarded as a viable process material for industrial applications.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemical Engineering, The Advanced Centre for Biochemical Engineering, University College London, Torrington Place, London WC1E 7JE, UK.
authors.forename: Steven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Branston
authors.forename: Emma
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Stanley
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ward
authors.forename: Eli
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Keshavarz-Moore
mesh_terms: D017104:Bacteriophage M13 / Q000502:physiology* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D057446:Hydrodynamics; D007218:Industrial Microbiology / Q000295:instrumentation*