Biochip

Systemic and local inflammatory responses were evaluated measuring cytokines in both the serum and EBC samples with a high sensitivity immunoassay kit (Randox™, United Kingdom) and were classified as pro-inflammatory (interleukin [IL]-1, IL-1α, IL-1β, IL-2, IL-6, IL-8, tumor necrosis factor [TNF]α and interferon [IFN]γ) or anti-inflammatory (IL-4 and IL-10). The Evidence Investigator™ Cytokine & Growth Factors High Sensitivity Array (Randox) was used for the simultaneous quantitative detection of multiple cytokines from a single sample. The Randox Biochip (Randox) is a solid-state device containing an array of discrete test regions of immobilised antibodies specific to different cytokines and growth factors. A sandwich chemiluminescent immunoassay is employed for the cytokine array. Increased levels of cytokine in a specimen will lead to increased binding of antibody labeled with horseradish peroxidase, and thus an increase in the chemiluminescence signal emitted. The light signal generated from each of the test regions on the biochip is detected using digital imaging technology and compared to that from a stored calibration curve. The concentration of analytes present in the sample is calculated from the calibration curve.

The following inflammatory and metabolic biomarkers were measured by a biochip array technology (Randox Biochip, RANDOX Laboratories, Crumlin, U.K., Metabolic Syndrome Array I for Evidence Investigator): insulin, leptin, resistin, ferritin, and PAI-1. Relevant information about the analyte detection and quality-control method has been given previously [8 (link)].

We applied a high-sensitive biochip array technology (Randox Biochip, RANDOX Laboratories, Crumlin, U.K., Cytokine and Growth Array for Evidence Investigator) to measure the profile of circulating cytokines. The following cytokines were assessed according to the manufacturer’s protocol: IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, IFN-γ, IL-1A, IL-1B, TNF-α, and MCP-1. A more detailed description of these measured markers in relation to the partially same cohort has been provided elsewhere [7 (link)].