Intraindividual long term stability and response corridors of cytokines in healthy volunteers detected by a standardized whole-blood culture system for bed-side application

Background The variation of immune cell activities over time is an immanent property of the human immune system, as can be measured by the stimulated secretion of cytokines in cell cultures. However, inter-individual variability is considerably higher. Especially the latter is the major reason why it has not been possible to establish international standard values for cytokines as was possible for other parameters, such as leukocyte sub-population numbers. In this trial, a highly standardized whole-blood culture model (TrueCulture®), developed to characterise drug effects on cells of the human immune system in clinical trials, was used to analyse cytokine patterns in the blood samples of 12 healthy subjects over a period of one month.