Cytokine profiling by multiplex immunoassay as an effective approach to assess immunomodulatory activity of bacterial product CANTASTIM.

The bacterial product CANTASTIM (CS) is a purified extract of Pseudomonas aeruginosa that induces non-specific protection against bacterial infection, enhances macrophage effector functions and modulates production of cytokines. Most likely, it interacts with components of the innate immune response. Cytokine production can be used to assess the bioactivity of this product but these biomolecules operate in vivo in a complex regulatory network with reciprocal influences so there is a need for profiling an array of cytokines rather than an individual analysis. Current technology development of multiplex immunoassay for simultaneous measurement of multiple analytes in a single assay has greatly improved the throughput and cost effectiveness of cytokine profiling and proved to be an effective approach to evaluate the immunomodulatory activity of the bacterial product CS.