Insect cells-Baculovirus system: Factors affecting growth and low MOI infection

The use of low multiplicity of infection (MOI) for the production of baculovirus in insect cell sytems is an attractive alternative for large-scale production processes. Such processes may be focused on the production of biological insecticides or on the expression of medically useful foreign genes. In the present study, the effect of MOI, cell inoculum age and inoculation procedure (carry-over of spent medium from the pre-culture) was studied. While some influences of inoculum age and medium were found, the overhelming effect is related to MOI. The data obtained describe the dynamics of the changes of non-occluded virus (NOV) in time, giving a useful insight into the mechanism of the cell-virus system.