Comparison of commercial kits to measure cytokine responses to Plasmodium falciparum by multiplex microsphere suspension array technology

Table 2 Comparisons between two identical plates tested with the Bio-Rad Human 17-plex cytokine panel.

Cytokine	Number of positive observations	Spearman's Rho	GM (pg/ml) plate 1	GM (pg/ml) plate 2	% difference in GM (95% CI) between 2 plates
IL-1 β	31	0.88**	32.47	21.34	52 (32, 75)
IL-2	12	0.96**	30.86	43.76	29 (16, 41)
IL-4	19	0.63**	1.88	1.21	55 (35, 78)
IL-5	7	0.71^NS	2.16	2.52	14 (-23, 40)
IL-6	19	0.95**	345.36	248.76	38 (20, 60)
IL-10	8	0.86**	21.65	15.06	44 (-19, 155)
IL-13	18	0.86**	5.30	4.49	18 (-8, 52)
G-CSF	12	0.62*	118.08	51.06	131 (92, 179)
IFN-γ	4	-0.60^NS	85.55	103.95	18 (-50, 55)
MIP-1β	15	0.89**	156.73	59.85	162 (117, 217)
TNF	9	-0.13^NS	61.10	40.35	51 (2, 126)

Spearman's Rho was used to test if a significant correlation existed between the samples on the two plates. **= Spearman's Rho test with significance of P < 0.01, * = Spearman's Rho test with significance of P < 0.05, ^NS = Spearman's Rho test which is non-significant. The cytokines with too few positive observations to enable spearman's Rho tests were not included on this table. GM = geometric mean.

ISSN: 1475-2875