Abstract
Interleukin-1 (IL-1) mediate immunological, physiological, and metabolic changes associated with inflammation and host defense system. Measurement of IL-1 activity can vary with the bioassay employed and substances have been described in several bioassay systems that either inhibit or mimic IL-1 activity. We report a sensitive and specific enzyme-linked immunoassay (ELISA) for human IL-1α and IL-1β. IL-1 monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies were used to develop sensitive sandwich ELISA assays. The IL-1 ELISA assay detects 10 pg/ml of recombinant human IL-1α and 100 pg/ml of recombinant human IL-1β. We have used this assay to measure IL-1 in a cell supernatant of stimulated human blood mononuclear cells which contained substances which interfere with in vitro and/or in vivo IL-1 biological assay. The IL-1 ELISA assay could discriminate between IL-1α and IL-1β, which the bioassay can not, and were faster and easier to perform than bioassay. Sensitive IL-1 ELISA assay can be used to identify and quantitate the amount of IL-1 synthesized under a variety of clinical and experimental conditions in the presence of other cytokines.
