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Clinical Chemistry 50: 2215-2216, 2004; 10.1373/clinchem.2004.040162
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(Clinical Chemistry. 2004;50:2215-2216.)
© 2004 American Association for Clinical Chemistry, Inc.

Letters to the Editor

Spurious Tumor Necrosis Factor-{alpha} and Interleukin-6 Production by Human Monocytes from Blood Collected in Endotoxin-Contaminated Vacutainer Blood Collection Tubes

Najib Aziz1, Michael R. Irwin2, Sally S. Dickerson3 and Anthony W. Butch1,a

1 Department of Pathology, and Laboratory Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine, at UCLA,2 Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology, UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, and3 Department of Psychology, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1732

aAuthor for correspondence. Fax 310-794-4864; e-mail abutch@mednet.ucla.edu.

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.


To the Editor:

Cell-mediated immunologic responses to various inflammatory and infectious disease processes have provided important insights into the biology of the immune system. As a measure of immune function, various cytokines are currently being measured in serum/plasma samples or in tissue culture supernatants after antigen/mitogen stimulation (1)(2)(3). When testing for proinflammatory cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor-{alpha} (TNF{alpha}) and interleukin-6 (IL-6), it is essential that all reagents and supplies are free from contamination with endotoxin and other bacteria-derived components with cell-stimulatory activity. For example, certain commercial preparations of fetal bovine serum and heat shock protein have been shown to contain endotoxin at concentrations that induce TNF{alpha} production by monocytes/macrophages (4)(5).

Vacutainer® blood collection tubes (Becton Dickinson) are routinely used by clinical laboratories to collect anticoagulated whole-blood samples for functional immunologic testing. During a study examining mitogen-induced proinflammatory cytokine production, we discovered that 5-mL glass sodium heparin Vacutainer Tubes (lot no. 3224585) were mitogenic and capable of inducing TNF{alpha} and IL-6 production by . . . [Full Text of this Article]






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