What are cytokines?

      In order to maintain the physiological balance of the body, resist the invasion of pathogenic microorganisms, and prevent tumors, many cells of the body, especially immune cells, synthesize and secrete many kinds of trace small molecular weight soluble proteins and polypeptide factors. Hundreds of such factors have been discovered, collectively known as cytokines.
　　They transmit information between cells, can widely regulate the body's immune response, cell growth and differentiation, and hematopoietic function, and participate in pathological processes such as inflammatory damage. Under abnormal circumstances, they may also cause pathological processes such as fever, inflammation, and shock.
　　Cytokines include lymphokines produced by lymphocytes, monokines produced by monocytes, and various growth factors.

Classification of cytokines:
　　1. Interleukin (IL): Cytokines produced by lymphocytes, monocytes or other non-mononuclear cells, which play an important regulatory role in cell-to-cell interaction, immune regulation, hematopoiesis and inflammation. 2. Colony stimulating factor (
　　CSF): It can stimulate the proliferation and differentiation of hematopoietic stem cells and progenitor cells at different developmental stages, and can also promote the function of mature cells.
　　3. Interferon (IFN): It was originally discovered that cells infected with a certain virus can produce a substance that can interfere with the infection and replication of another virus, hence the name. It is produced by white blood cells, fibroblasts and activated T cells, and has antiviral, anti-tumor and immune regulation effects. 4.
　　Tumor necrosis factor (TNF): It was originally discovered that this substance can cause necrosis of tumor tissue and got its name. In addition to killing tumor cells, it also has immune regulation and participates in the occurrence of fever and inflammation.
　　5. Transforming growth factor-β family (TGF-β family): Produced by a variety of cells, mainly including TGF-β1, TGF-β2, TGF-β3, TGFβ1β2 and bone morphogenetic protein (BMP).
　　6. Chemokine family: It can attract chemokines to migrate cells and attract white blood cells to the site of infection, playing an important role in inflammatory response.
　　7. Other cytokines: such as epidermal growth factor (EGF), platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF), fibroblast growth factor (FGF), hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF), nerve growth factor (NGF), etc.

The role of cytokines:
　　Cytokine research helps to clarify the mechanism of immune regulation at the molecular level, and helps to prevent, diagnose and treat diseases. Therefore, related research has very important theoretical and practical significance and has broad application prospects.
　　Recombinant cytokines produced by genetic engineering technology have been used to treat tumors, infections, inflammation, hematopoietic dysfunction, etc., and have achieved good therapeutic effects.
　　Type of action: Participate in immune response and immune regulation, stimulate hematopoietic function, cytokines and neuro-endocrine-immune system network.
　　Mode of action: 1. Autocrine action. 2. Paracrine action. 3. Endocrine action.
　　Action characteristics: Pleiotropic, overlapping, synergistic, antagonistic.

Cytokine product selection criteria:

Species source:
　　Herui Bio can provide recombinant proteins such as cytokines from a variety of different species, such as human, mouse, rat, etc. You can choose the appropriate species according to the experimental needs.
　　Generally speaking, if the protein homology (sequence consistency) between different species is more than 80%, it can be determined that there is cross-activity and it can be recommended for use.

Expression system:
　　The most commonly used cytokine expression systems are E. coli expression system and mammalian cell expression system, in addition to yeast expression system and insect expression system.
　　At present, most cytokines used in clinical and laboratory applications are derived from E. coli. Before choosing an expression system, you need to fully understand your research purpose and choose the most appropriate expression system according to the application.
　　For example, some proteins need to be post-translationally modified to be active. Mammalian cells can provide such modifications, but bacterial cells often cannot.
　　Therefore, when purchasing such proteins, you should pay special attention to the protein source in the product manual.

Quality indicators:

　　The impact of cytokine quality on the experiment cannot be underestimated. Once the selection fails, the experiment cannot be carried out smoothly, wasting time and energy. Therefore, it is very important to choose products with guaranteed quality. Good brands will perform various quality controls on their protein products to ensure the quality of the protein and the experimental effect.
　　If used as an animal immune antigen for the study of detection antibodies, the purity can be greater than 80%; if used for crystal and crystal structure research, the purity must be greater than 95%.
　　With the deepening of cell research, the requirements for all aspects of cell culture are getting higher and higher. However, the composition of serum is relatively complex, which will have a greater impact on the results of some high-demand basic research, especially in drug analysis, new drug development and other aspects. In addition, serum also contains certain cytotoxic substances and inhibitors, which have an effect on cell differentiation and affect the expression of certain functions. Some cells cannot even survive in serum. Therefore, serum-free culture medium is on the rise.
　　In order to use serum-free culture medium to make cells grow well, a certain amount of suitable cytokines must be added, such as EPO, NGF, PDGF, EGF, M-CSF, etc. Herui Bio's high-quality cytokines are animal-free, low in endotoxin, and have good batch-to-batch stability. They can be widely used in cell culture and differentiation in cell research and in the preparation of high-demand cell culture media, helping your cell culture.