CYTOKINE ASSAYS AND THEIR LIMITATIONS

With the increasing popularity of the use of cytokine immunoassays in basic and clinical research, there is an urgent need for cytokine immu noassay reference preparations and standards in order that results pub lished by various investigators can be directly compared, Until such s tandards are available, it is recommended that results obtained using immunoassays from different sources be compared with caution. Addition ally, users of immunoassays should clearly understand the biology of t he systems they are studying and the characteristics of their immunoas says with respect to cross-reactivities with cytokine isoforms, interf erences by soluble receptors, and matrix effects on samples of interes t, It is also recommended that immunoassay developers take special pre cautions in the selection of antibodies and only use antibodies that a re not biased against one or the other of the recombinant forms.