Cancer Biology

Different vaccine and adjuvant combinations are known to rapidly induce antigen presenting cell (APC) maturation and pro-inflammatory cytokine and production, which in turn play an important role in the priming of antigen-specific T cells. Measuring cytokine production systemically in the serum fails to detect localized responses in the lymph nodes draining a subcutaneous immunization site. On the other hand, stimulating APC with vaccine formulations in vitro lacks the complexity of the lymph node microenvironment and the presence of other in vivo factors. Here we analyse cytokine production directly in vaccine draining lymph nodes (dLN) extracted early after in vivo vaccination. To do this we perform cytokine multiplex analysis of supernatants from whole dLN cell suspensions following a brief ex vivo incubation.