微生物学技术

The isolation of total and bioactive cytokines can be achieved by a combination of immunoaffinity and immobilized receptor chromatography. The former procedure isolates the total amount of a specific cytokine, and the latter procedure isolates the bioactive fraction of the immunoa ...

Circadian rhythmicity is a prominent feature of many important biologic functions. Failure to take such variation into account when performing assays may lead to increased assay variation or, most importantly, an erroneous result. Circadian rhythms of immunologic relevance incl ...

ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) is a powerful, versatile, precise, and reliable quantitative technique for the measurement of antigens or antibodies in biologic samples. The ELISA technique is a widely used tool in biologic and biomedical research; it has been modified and a ...

From their genesis as instruments designed to count and size particles, flow cytometers have, over the last 40 years, evolved into a range of sophisticated instruments. These instruments are now used widely in all branches of biologic science. Originally, the preserve of the research labora ...

The ordinary method for quantitative analysis of cytokines consists of measuring cytokines produced and accumulated in the supernatants of shortterm cultures, by means of enzyme immunoassay. However, this approach provides only cumulative amounts in a fixed time, thus limiting the ...

The enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) spot (ELISPOT) procedure is basically a modification of the plaque techniques, hence its initial synonym ELISA plaque assay. Plaque assays allow the enumeration of antibody-secreting cells by diluting them in an environment in which the ...

As an alternative to the ELISPOT assay described in previous chapters, the expression of known cytokines can be analyzed at the mRNA level. Although expression of mRNA for a particular cytokine does not imply corre-sponding expression of the protein, both techniques in combination provide ...

The introduction of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) methodology has dramatically revolutionized basic and clinical molecular biology research in the recent decade. Accurate detection and identification of tiny and limited amounts of DNA are now possible (1). The PCR method, in co ...

Cytokines play a crucial role in innate and adaptive immunity. The onset or progression of immunopathology in various diseases is often associated with aberrant production of one or more cytokines. It is therefore of considerable interest to characterize cytokine “profiles” associ ...

Interleukin-8 (IL-8) is a member of the rapidly expanding chemokine family, which consists of a large number of small (8–10 kDa) secreted proteins with the capacity to act as leukocyte chemoattractants (1). Chemokines are crucial mediators of inflammation as they are able to enhance migration ...

The regulation of gene activity plays a cardinal role, not only in the overall function of a cell, but also in the response of a given tissue to challenges by extracellular signals, amplifying the response well beyond stimulus-secretion coupling.

Cytokines produced by a variety of cells in response to stimuli are important in the regulation of physiologic and immunologic processes; tremendous efforts have been made to study cytokine profiles in various physiologic and disease conditions. Bioluminescent reverse transcri ...

Bioassays are used to determine the presence and concentration of biologically active cytokines by exploiting the different activities they induce, such as cellular proliferation, chemotaxis, or cytotoxicity. These assays often use established cell lines that depend for their c ...

Interleukin-6 (IL-6) is a 21-28 kDa glycoprotein produced by T and B cells, monocytes, macrophages, fibroblasts, endothelial cells, and tumor cells (1). Elevated IL-6 has been identified in the serum of breast cancer patients (2). IL-6 has been implicated in breast cancer metastasis (3), and IL-6 was p ...

Interleukin 15 (IL-15) has been described as a cytokine with biologic functions similar to those of IL-2. IL-2 and IL-15 utilize a receptor composed of three subunits: IL-2 receptor β-chain, the y-chain (βc) shared by IL-15, IL-2, IL-4, IL-7, and IL-9 receptors, and a unique a-chain. The α-chain of the IL-15 recep ...

Stressors may instigate a series of hormonal variations, coupled with neurochemical alterations within the brain that promote cognitive alterations and favor the development of depressive illness. Indeed, it appears that in many respects the effects of stressors are reminiscent ...

The pathogenesis of Graves′ disease, an autoimmune thyroid disorder, remains incompletely understood. Increasing clinical and experimental evidence shows that genetic predisposition, disturbances of the immune system function and environmental factors affecting th ...

Cytokines are considered to be of major importance for the pathogenesis of several cutaneous disorders. Their considerable impact may result from autocrine, paracrine, or endocrine effects. Consequently, numerous investigations aim to measure cytokines, including interle ...

Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is one of the most common diseases in cardiology. Recent studies have shown the important role of an activated immune system and its products (interleukins) in the pathogenesis of AMI in these processes: 1.

The history of laboratory testing closely follows developments in the field of immunology in general. Serologic investigations were a natural outgrowth of the study of immunity, and the period from 1900 to 1950 has been called the era of international serology (1). Serology is the study of the non ...