Cytokine Expression Profile as Predictive Surrogate Biomarkers for Clinical Events in the Field of Solid Organ Transplantation

Abstract

The morbidity and mortality after solid organ transplantation leads to poor outcomes in the long-term graft survival. There are many sources increasing bad outcomes within the post-transplant period reducing the quality of recipient´s life, such as rejection episodes, opportunistic infections as well as immunosuppression related morbidity. A complete understanding on the immune system responses against the allo-graft remains unknown. Recently, some pro-inflammatory cytokines, such as IFN-γ and IL-17, as well as IL-2, have been proposed as surrogate biomarkers able to predict the appearance of clinical event episodes. In this review we summarize the latest findings regarding the immune function monitoring in solid organ transplantation as well as the most common techniques (ELISPOT, ELISA and Flow Cytometry) that have been widely used across different clinical laboratories.

Keywords: Immune function monitoring; acute rejection; cytokine; opportunistic infection; predictive biomarkers.