Development of a multiplex-based immunoassay for the characterization of diphtheria, tetanus and acellular pertussis antigens in human combined DTaP vaccines.

Routine batch quality testing before vaccine release, notably for potency evaluation, still relies on animal use for several animal and human vaccines. In this context, the VAC2VAC project is a public-private consortium of 22 partners funded by EU whose the main objective is to reduce the number of animal used for batch testing by developing immunoassays that could be implemented for routine potency assessment of vaccines. This paper focused on the development of a Luminex-based multiplex assay to monitor the consistency of antigen quantity and quality throughout the production process of DTaP vaccines from two human vaccine manufacturers. Indepth characterized monoclonal antibody pairs were used for development and optimization of the Luminex assay with non-adsorbed and adsorbed antigens and with complete vaccine formulations from both manufacturers. The multiplex assay demonstrated good specificity, reproducibility and absence of cross-reactivity. Analysis of over and underdosed formulations, heat and H2O2-degraded products as well as batch to batch consistency of vaccines from both manufacturers brought the proof of concept for a future application of the multiplex immunoassay as a useful tool in the frame of DTaP vaccine quality control.