Immune response biomarkers in human and veterinary research

Abstract

A B S T R A C TBiomarkers are increasingly utilised in biological research and clinical practice for diagnosis of disease, monitoring of therapeutic prognosis, or as end points in clinical studies. Cytokines are small molecules that orchestrate immune responses and as such have great potential as biomarkers for both human and veterinary fields. Given the ease of sampling in the blood, and their high prevalence in clinical applications we will focus on protein detection as an area for biomarker discovery. This is facilitated by new technological developments such as digital ELISA that have led to significant increases in sensitivity. Two highly relevant examples include type I interferons, namely IFNα, that is now directly quantifiable by digital ELISA from biological samples. The application of this approach to the study of the unique bat interferon response may reveal novel findings with applications in both human and veterinary research. As a second example we will describe the use of CXCL10 as a disease biomarker in Tuberculosis, highlighting findings from human and mouse studies that should be considered in veterinary research. In summary, we describe how cytokines may be applied as novel biomarkers and illustrate two key examples where human and veterinary research may complement each other in line with the One Health objectives. Cytokines and Chemokines as immune response biomarkersBlood and plasma-borne biomarkers are not only desirable for their accessibility, but also because they offer the potential for serial monitoring. Unlike SNPs which are static, protein responses are dynamic and can therefore potentially reflect disease status or even responses to therapeutic intervention. Plasma carries information from most organs https://doi.

Immunostimulation of Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) blood cells by parapoxvirus ovis and CpG motif-containing bacterial plasmid DNA upregulates innate immune gene expression

“…For an accurate interpretation, it must be acknowledged that mRNA expression is not synonymous with protein production (68-70). Accordingly, minor changes in the expression of potent mediators, such as cytokines, can potentially have far-reaching biological effects (71)(72)(73)(74). Conversely, what may be calculated as statistically significant changes in gene expression may produce relatively negligible downstream consequences due to posttranscriptional and post-translational regulatory mechanisms (75,76).…”

Optimization of Capture ELISAs for Chicken Cytokines Using Commercially Available Antibodies

“…These five cytokines are thus implicated to play an important role in the immune responses against pathogens, defining the Th1/Th2 cytokine responses, and the nature of macrophage activation. These features make cytokines valuable biomarkers to assess the type of immune response induced by, for example, infectious diseases [ 10 ] or act as indicators for cellular activation in in vitro assays [ 11 ]. Therefore, the presence of cytokines in serum, plasma, or supernatant from cultured cells serves as an important biomarker for assessing immune function.…”

Association of acute psychosocial stress with oxidative stress: Evidence from serum analysis

“…In addition, both groups showed trends of gradual increases in IL-6 but no changes in TNF-α: recent studies suggest psychological stress activates the immune system [ 1 , 15 , 29 , 30 ] although inconsistent responses of inflammatory biomarkers across studies have been reported [ 9 , 26 , 31 , 32 ]. These discrepancies in inflammation biomarkers have been explained by: i) the immune response susceptibility to various confounding factors [ 9 , 33 ]; ii) inter-individual differences [ 26 , 34 ]; and iii) inconsistencies in sample collection, storage and measurement protocols [ 26 , 35 ].…”