Cytokines And Cytokine Assays For Swine

Cytokines play a key role in the immunobiology of swine, and have the potential to improve themanagement of these animals. The pattern and tissue distribution of inflammatory cytokine expressionmay be indicative of the health or infectious status of the animal. Thus, the development of rapidcytokine tests is necessary to exploit this useful diagnostic information.Cytokines may also play another important role in protecting swine health; they are reported to beuseful as a vaccine adjuvants in animals. The availability of purified biologically active cytokines isessential to elucidate the roles of these cytokines in the initiation and maintenance of immune responseand to develop a source of these proteins for vaccination studies.With the exception of recombinant porcine Tumor Necrosis Factor alpha (TNF?) and an immunoassayfor porcine TNF? (both developed and marketed by Endogen, Inc.), there are no commerciallyavailable porcine cytokine reagents.In Phase 1, Endogen proposes to express, purify and characterize recombinant porcine Interleukin 1beta (IL-1¿), Interleukin 6 (IL-6), Interleukin 8 (IL-8), Interleukin 12 (IL-12), and Interferon Gamma(IFN?). These recombinant cytokines will then be used to achieve the Phase II goals; the developmentof a panel of cytokine immunoassays for swine health monitoring, and the investigation of recombinantcytokines as vaccine adjuvants.