Research Techniques Made Simple: Monitoring of T-Cell Subsets using the ELISPOT Assay

Dabigatran monitoring made simple?

Haemost 2013; 110: 308-315. Dabigatran, an oral thrombin inhibitor, is licensed as an alternative to warfarin for stroke prevention in patients with atrial fibrillation. As the first of the new oral anticoagulants (NOACs) to gain approval for this indication, its use is increasing now that its safety has been confirmed using real-world data (1, 2), and clinical guidelines have given preference ...

Assessment of T-dependent and T-independent immune responses in cattle using a B cell ELISPOT assay

Understanding the mechanisms that maintain protective antibody levels after immunisation is important for vaccine design. In this study, we have determined the kinetics of plasma and memory B cells detectable in the blood of cattle immunised with model T-dependent or T-independent antigens. Immunisation with the T-D antigen resulted in an expansion of TNP-specific plasma cells post-TNP primary ...

ELISPOT Assay for Monitoring Cytotoxic T Lymphocytes (CTL) Activity in Cancer Vaccine Clinical Trials

The profiling and monitoring of immune responses are key elements in the evaluation of the efficacy and development of new biotherapies, and a number of assays have been introduced for analyzing various immune parameters before, during, and after immunotherapy. The choice of immune assays for a given clinical trial depends on the known or suggested immunomodulating mechanisms associated with th...

The Immunomodulatory Effect of Cyclophosphamide on Regulation of T-Cell Subsets and Antigen Presenting Cells.

ELISPOT assays provide reproducible results among different laboratories for T-cell immune monitoring--even in hands of ELISPOT-inexperienced investigators.

Measurements of antibodies in bodily fluids (e.g., by ELISA) have provided robust and reproducible results for decades and such assays have been validated for monitoring of B-cell immunity. In contrast, measuring T-cell immunity has proven to be a challenge due to the need to test live cells in functional assays ex vivo. Several previous efforts looking into the reproducibility of ex vivo T-cel...