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Ex Vivo LPS Stimulation Assay

CYTOKINE RESPONSE ASSESSMENT

Background

Ex vivo LPS stimulation and cytokine release assays are an important analytical tool.

Prototrial Strategy

Analytical Strategy

The principal of the assay is well established and requires blood (whole blood or diluted) to stimulated with LPS and the measure the levels of key cytokines (e.g. IL-1B, IL-6, IL-18, TNF-a) in culture supernatants. To ensure the model could be used robustly in a clinical trial we studied a broad range of conditions to assess their impact on analytical variability.

Outcomes

Findings from the study included:

  • A high degree of inter-subject variability in the level cytokine response.
  • Intra-subject diurnal variability in cytokine response.
  • Significant impact from fasting status on cytokine response.
  • Certain cytokines were more robust predictors of a given therapeutics’ efficacy.

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