Ex vivo induction of cytokine mRNA expression in human blood samples

C Härtel, G Bein, M Müller-Steinhardt… - Journal of immunological …, 2001 - Elsevier
The interest in the quantitative analysis of cytokine mRNA profiles has increased
substantially in recent years. This is based on the potential use of basal cytokine mRNA
expression as sensitive markers for in vivo lymphocyte activation in a variety of clinical
settings. However, it is less well known to what extent differences in blood collection and
preparation techniques may cause ex vivo alteration of quantitative cytokine mRNA levels.
We therefore evaluated the effect of blood sampling and the impact of cell separation on …