Sucrose and fetal bovine serum maintain stability and activity of the budded baculovirus during dehydration

Budded baculovirus has become an important vector for gene delivery, vaccine development, protein expression in insect and mammalian cells, and many other emerging applications. For high-throughput applications or for long-term storage and long-distance shipping, it would be useful if the infectivity and transduction abilities of baculovirus could be maintained at room temperature under dehydrated condition. The aim of this study was to design an optimized formula that preserves the activity of baculovirus stocks during prolonged periods of dehydration at various storage temperatures. The results showed that baculovirus without any supplement rapidly lost its transduction ability after dehydration. However, of many anti-oxidants, sugars, buffering agents and humectants tested, we found that a supplement consisting of a mixture of sucrose and fetal bovine serum optimally stabilized dehydrated baculovirus. This formula was able to maintain the dehydrated baculovirus at ∼80% transduction efficiency after one week storage at 25°C and up to 70% three weeks post-dehydration. Thus, an optimized new formula is developed for the preservation of baculovirus in a dried form that can be stored for long periods at ambient temperatures while retaining its functional activity.