Background Proteins such as cytokines, chemokines and growth factors play critical roles in biological processes. These act as disease biomarkers in the study of various infectious diseases. Dysfunction or dysregulation of these biomarkers may cause a variety of pathophysiological conditions. Consequently, biomarker profiling and related technologies are essential for biological studies, disease diagnosis, monitoring of treatment response and drug discovery. Many multiplexing platforms are available for the detection of these biomarkers. There is limited independently published information about the reliability of most of the platforms available in the market. The objectives of this study were to assess the abilities of the Luminex, Meso Scale Discovery (MSD) and the Curiox Drop-Array system in the detection of biomarkers in spiked sera.

Methods We assessed the abilities of three multiplex technologies; Luminex, MSD and the Curiox Drop-Array system in the detection of five cytokines, interleukin (IL)-2, IL-6, IL-10, Tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) and Interferon gamma (IFNg), in the same set of spiked serum samples. Experiments on each platform were performed as recommended by the kit manufacturer. We assessed the concentration of each analyte detected by each platform Vs. the expected actual concentrations.

Results For samples with known low and high cytokine concentrations, all platforms were able to discriminate between low Vs. high expression, however, the actual concentration for each cytokine varied greatly amongst the three platforms. Our data revealed MSD as the most sensitive amongst the platforms compared, and Curiox as the most suitable for high-throughput multiplexing, when employed alongside a Luminex platform.

Conclusion Although quantitative differences were found between the platforms assessed, the relative concentrations detected were comparable, showing that all three platforms were suitable for analyzing trends in multiple cytokine profiles. Further studies, including comparison with ELISA are ongoing.