Combining TruCulture® and OptiMAP to Profile Human Immunity

Shen-An Hwang, Dominic Eisinger, and Samuel LaBrie

ABSTRACT

TruCulture® is a whole blood collection and culture system designed for use at clinical sites. TruCulture outperforms traditional peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) culturing methods, with improved reproducibility and higher levels of stimulation (Duffy et. al. Clinical Immunology 2017). The TruCulture proprietary culture medium ensures minimal non-specific immune activation, delivering a steady baseline and decreased variation across study populations. OptiMAP is a multiplex immunoassay panel that measures 13 cytokines of the major immune response pathways (T_H1, T_H2, T_H17, and monocyte/macrophage). Using TruCulture and OptiMAP, we analyzed healthy donor whole blood responses to common stimulants: T cell activators, TLR agonists, and superantigens. The subjects ranged from 24 to 70 years old and consisted of 48% males and 52% females. The results indicated that healthy donors responded similarly to stimulation with anti-CD3/CD28 and staph enterotoxin type B (SEB) in production of T cell cytokines (IFN-γ, IL-2, and IL-17). The response to SEB is positively correlated to the monocyte population in whole blood. T cell responses to SEB and CytoStim (an antibody based alternative to SEB) are similar in production of IFN-γ and IL-17, but CytoStim had a reduced stimulation of IL-2. As expected, all healthy donors responded to a TLR-4 agonist (LPS) by producing high levels of TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-1β. LPS stimulated production of IFN-γ was similar to SEB, most likely due to bystander activation. The TLR-7 agonist (gardiquimod, GDQ) stimulated IL-10 levels at a level comparable to LPS. These data illustrate the utility of combining TruCulture and OptiMAP to investigate human immune stimulation pathways for clinical research.