Abstract

EVALUATING THE REPLACEMENT OF PAPAIN MEAT DIGEST BY NZ AMINE IN POPE AND LINGWOOD MEDIUM FOR DIPHTHERIA TOXIN

Mrinalini Ghoshal*, Dr.Partha Rakshit, Dr. Naveen Gupta, Debarpan Dhar, Pradeep Nathani, Tejpal Kashyap

ABSTRACT

Mammalian meat media used for the cultivation of Corynebacterium diphtheriae are often contaminated with prions and formalin adducts of animals which cannot be easily removed from toxin. They contaminate the final vaccine preparation and stimulate anaphylactic reactions in patients taking the vaccine . In this paper, a new kind of semi synthetic media has been shown that contains casein as the only source of proteinaceous nutrients as a substitute to mammalian meat used in the traditional media. Casein which is a milk protein is unlikely to present any risk of contamination with prions or allergens and hence can be considered to be safer than the meat media. A comparative study of the growth characteristics of Corynebacterium diphtheriaein the two media was done. The cytotoxic effect of the diphtheria toxin in both meat media and semi synthetic casein based media was assayed using vero cell lines and injected in guinea pigs. Though the Lf/ml and cytotoxic effect on guinea pigs in case of the toxin in casein based media was foundto be slightly lower than that of the traditional media, the purity of the toxin and growth rate of the organism appeared to be significantly higher in the semi synthetic media. This indicated the potential of the casein based semi synthetic media to act as a replacement to the traditional meat media for supporting the growth of Corynebacterium diphtheriae and even serve for the production of diphtheria toxin.

Keywords: Corynebacterium, meat, casein, Lf, vero cell, semi synthetic media.