Inflammatory Cytokines & Receptors

Acute inflammation occurs in response to cell damage resulting from infection or injury. During this process, cellular and plasma-derived factors encourage extravasation, which is the recruitment of circulating immune cells into the affected tissue. These immune cells increase the expression of inflammatory cytokines that recruit additional immune cells. These cells mount an immune response to any invading organisms and further promote, and eventually resolve, the inflammatory response. Chronic inflammation, or expression of these cytokines and receptors at low levels over long periods of time, promotes various pathological conditions including allergies and asthma, cardiovascular system disorders (atherosclerosis), central nervous system disorders (Alzheimer’s disease), fibrosis, and rheumatoid arthritis. The majority of cytokines are inflammatory, including classes such as chemokines, interferons, and interleukins. These cytokines bind and activate their respective receptors to promote inflammatory responses.

QIAGEN provides a broad range of assay technologies for inflammatory cytokine and receptor research that enables analysis of gene expression and regulation, epigenetic modification, genotyping, and signal transduction pathway activation. Solutions optimized for inflammatory cytokine and receptor studies include PCR array, miRNA, siRNA, mutation analysis, pathway reporter, chromatin IP, DNA methylation, and protein expression products.