In vitro Cytokine Release Assays For Toxicity Biomarker Discovery.

Drug discovery projects entering the preclinical phase need biomarkers of early inflammation, repair, and immunomodulation processes that are associated with toxicity. Because cytokines appear very early in toxicity and have a short half-life, they offer definite advantages as mechanistic markers and in modeling exposure-activity-toxicity relationships.

CellMade offers both single and multiplex cytokine profiling of primary human cell lines as a first step towards the identification of cytokine biomarkers for preclinical studies. Because we have a large collection of primary human cells and advanced 3D co-culture models to choose from, we can perform real-time profiling of cytokine changes in particular target cells of interest, during the incubation with drug candidates. This enables us to identify individual cytokines or cytokine panels that are worthy of further investigation in preclinical species.

Our analysis platform uses flow cytometry with fluorescent microspheres, giving sensitive, quantitative data on selected cytokines in each cell type analysed.

Our service model is flexible and there are 3 main options:

Single Cytokine Profiling – select the cell type, select the cytokine and perform dose-response analysis with test drugs.

Multiplex Cytokine Profiling – as above, but analysing multiple cytokines in the same assay.

Pro-Inflammatory Cytokine Release – evaluate PGE2/COX2 levels in a chosen cell type after repeated dosing with test drug candidate. This is particular useful for anti-inflammatory drug candidates which commonly elicit undesirable pro-inflammatory effects.

Please contact us to discuss potential for cytokine profiling for early toxicity biomarker discovery for your project.