Measuring dynamic inflammation regulation in low-resource settings: results from a sample of adults in the Dominican Republic

Abstract

Introduction Inflammatory signaling mediates several homeostatic mechanisms that shape health, and quantifying inflammation regulation patterns using ex vivo cell culture systems—response to activation and sensitivity to inhibition—improves upon baseline measures of chronic inflammation. The purpose of this report is to demonstrate the feasibility of implementing an ex vivo cell culture system in a low-resource setting in the Dominican Republic.

Methods This study implements an ex vivo cell culture system to measure stimulated inflammation and glucocorticoid (GC) sensitivity using finger stick capillary blood collected from 202 adults in the Dominican Republic (age: 18–61 years).

Results Median cytokine responses (pg/mL) to incubation with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) were robust for IL6 (58.0), IL1β (21.3), and TNFα (23.1). Median cytokine responses to incubation with LPS and GC—capturing sensitivity to inhibition—were attenuated for IL6 (20.2), IL1β (8.4), and TNFα (7.0).

Conclusion Minimally invasive cell culture protocols offer novel research opportunities for measuring inflammation regulation and health in low-resource settings across diverse eco-social milieus.