Detection and quantitation of forty eight cytokines, chemokines, growth factors and nine acute phase proteins in healthy human plasma, saliva and urine.

Cytokines, chemokines, growth factors (CCGFs) and other low abundance proteins/peptides in human body fluids or in tissues are potential biomarkers. Human body fluids such as plasma, saliva, urine, etc. are being analyzed more frequently than tissues primarily because of ease of sample collection. However, available information on concentrations of a large number of CCGFs in various body fluids of the same healthy individuals and gender-specific CCGFs is limited. In this work concentrations of 48 CCGFs were measured using multiplex bead assays and compared between plasma, saliva and urine collected from 20 male and female healthy volunteers. Forty three CCGFs were detected at least in one sample type of which 37 were in plasma, 41 were in saliva, and 34 were in urine; five CCGFs were not detected in any sample. Concentrations of detected CCGFs differed significantly between sample types but similar between gender groups. Gender-specific CCGFs were also observed. Concentrations of nine acute phase proteins were also measured from plasma, saliva and urine to determine general health conditions of the volunteers. This work will provide an idea of which CCGFs are detectable and their relative concentrations in healthy human plasma, saliva and urine and which CCGFs are gender-specific.