Open Access

REVIEW

Antibodies as tools in cytokine discovery and usage for diagnosis and therapy of inflammatory diseases

Jo Van Damme^1,$, Ghislain Opdenakker^2,$, Sam Van Damme³, Soffe Struyf¹

1 Laboratory of Molecular Immunology, Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation, Rega Institute for Medical Research, KU Leuven, Herestraat 49—Box 1042, 3000 Leuven, Belgium; jo.vandamme@kuleuven.be;
2 Laboratory of Immunobiology, Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation, Rega Institute for Medical Research, KU Leuven, Herestraat 49—Box 1044, 3000 Leuven, Belgium; ghislain.opdenakker@kuleuven.be
3 Health Care Lab, VIVES University of Applied Sciences, Doorniksesteenweg 145, 8500 Kortrijk, Belgium; sam.vandamme@vives.be;
$ Equally contributed

* Corresponding Author: S. Struyf,

European Cytokine Network 2023, 34(1), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1684/ecn.2023.0484

Accepted 17 April 2023;

Abstract

Polyclonal antisera from patients have been at the basis of the description of autoimmune diseases and today monoclonal antibodies are widely used in the therapy of cancer and many inflammatory diseases. How antisera and antibodies in combination with traditional in vitro and in vivo biological test systems have been instrumental reagents for the discovery of new cytokines is illustrated here for interleukin-1, -6 and -8. Furthermore, widely used immunological detection/quantification systems, such as ELISAs and multiplex assays, based on the use of either polyclonal or monoclonal antibodies, are often fraught with misinterpretations, because the results are affected by the possible occurrence of posttranslational modifications (PTMs) of the analytes. Cytokines and chemokines are present in vivo as mixtures of proteoforms with different amino- or carboxytermini or carrying heterogeneous glycan chains and possibly also being subject to citrullination, pyroglutamination and other PTMs. Increased knowledge about the specificities of antibody (cross)reactivities with cytokine ligands have improved diagnosis and treatment of many diseases, with inflammatory processes, including cancer-associated inflammation, at the frontline.

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