Comparison of ELISA and flow cytometry for measurement of interleukin-1 beta, interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor-α

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundAlthough majority of the previous studies have shown a good correlation between enzyme linked immuno sorbent assay (ELISA) and flow cytometry in terms of cytokines, two laboratory methods usually were compared with the regression analysis and correlation in the literature. This study aimed at comparing the ELISA and flow cytometry assay for measuring cytokines by using two different statistical methods, regression analysis and Bland-Altman plot.Materials and methodsFifty patients, diagnosed with hypercholesterolemia and expecting high level serum cytokines, and 30 healthy volunteers, expecting normal level serum cytokines, were enrolled in the study. The interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β), interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) were measured using ELISA, and compared with obtained levels using flow cytometric method.ResultsAlthough regression analysis showed that the two methods are compatible with measurements of IL-1β, IL-6 and TNF-α, they tended to show dissimilarity with measurements of IL-1β and TNF-α based on Bland-Altman graphs.ConclusionAccording to Bland-Altman plot, our results providing evidence of ELISA and flow cytometry assays were compatible with each other for IL-1β and IL-6 measurements compared to TNF-α measurement. However, our study has a small number of participants, hence this study need to be confirmed by investigations involving more participants.