Evaluation of next-generation sequencing performance for in vitro detection of viruses in biological products

Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) can detect nucleic acid sequences in a massively parallel sequencing. This technology is expected to be widely applied for the detection of viral contamination in biologics. The recently published ICH-Q5A (R2) draft indicates that NGS could be an alternative or supplement to in vitro viral tests. To examine the performance of NGS for the in vitro detection of viruses, adenovirus type 5 (Ad5), a model virus, was inoculated into Vero cells, which are the most popular indicator cells for the detection of adventitious viruses in the in vitro test. Total RNA extracted from the Vero cells infected with Ad5 was serially diluted with that from non-infected Vero cells, and each sample was analyzed using short- or long-read NGSs. The limits of detection of both NGS methods were almost the same and both methods were sensitive enough to detect viral sequences as long as there was at least one copy in one assay. Although the multiplexing in NGS carries the risk of cross-contamination among the samples, which could lead to false positives, this technology has the potential to become a rapid and sensitive method for detecting adventitious agents in biologics.