Comparing H1N1 Virus Quantification with a Unique Flow Cytometer and Quantitative PCR

摘要

Anovel influenza A (H1N1) virus was discovered in Mexico in early 2009 (l). Infections from this strain led to declaration of a pandemic midyear, with about 61 million patients and 13,000 deaths reported by the US Centers for Disease Control (2). Although the pandemic officially ended in August 2010 (3), vaccines are still in demand to protect people against the H1N1 strain that is now expected to circulate seasonally for years to come. To best respond to pandemic outbreaks and annual composition changes, the vaccine industry must be able to produce large quantities of product in a short amount of time (4). New methods for culturing, clone screening, scale-up, and production require analytical methods that can rapidly quantify virus to ensure enhanced productivity. Ideal new virus quantification methods would be fast, precise, robust relative to a wide range of viruses, and would correlate well with established methods (5).