Biomarkers of IBS-related Stress Response

Based on previous findings that IBS is related to stress and an intestinal inflammatory response [9 (link),14 (link),40 (link)], the following parameters were tested to investigate the mechanisms related to these reactions, at 0, 4, and 8 weeks: (1) Cortisol, (2) corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH), (3) serotonin, and (4) cytokines, including eotaxin, FGF, G-CSF, GM-CSF, IFN-γ, IL-10, IL-12, IL-13, IL-15, IL-17, IL-1β, IL-1ra, IL-2, IL-4, IL-5, IL-6, IL-7, IL-8, IL-9, IP-10, MCP-1, MIP-1, PDGF, RANTES, TNF-α, and VEGF [41 (link),42 (link)]. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kits for cortisol and serotonin were purchased from LDN GmBH and Co. (Nordhorn, Germany), and a CRH ELISA kit was obtained from MyBioSource (San Diego, CA, USA). The levels of 27 cytokines were determined using the Bio-Plex Pro™ Human Cytokine 27-Plex (Bio-Rad Laboratories, Hercules, CA, USA).