Daily production of human tumor necrosis factor in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated ex vivo blood culture assays.

INTRODUCTION In physiological concentrations of pg/ml of plasma, cytokines mediate a series of metabolic and biochemical changes in responding cells. Inflammatory and immune responses, resulting from autocrine, paracrine and endocrine cytokine actions may follow. Massive tissue damage, as a result of a variety of traumas, including sepsis, precipitates the loss of control of cytokine release, leading to a series of reactions involving damage [...]