Assay of soluble tumor necrosis factor receptors

Over the last decade, numerous basic biological as well as experimental and clinical studies have firmly established the significance of tumor necrosis factor (TNF) as a principal proximal mediator of sepsis (1-4). One of the major insights that has emerged during recent years has been that under physiological circumstances, TNF activity is tightly controlled and locally restricted. In this respect, the soluble TNF receptors (sTNF-Rs) have been recognized to exert an important regulatory control on the biological actions of TNF, not only in the normal host defense against infection, but also in systemic inflammatory disorders that are related to infectious as well as noninfectious etiologies. Moreover, elevated systemic levels of sTNF-R have been demonstrated to have accurate diagnostic as well as prognostic significance in clinical sepsis and other critical illnesses (5-13). Therefore, accurate determination of sTNF-R in plasma or serum has become an important tool to gain information about a variety of pathological conditions that are characterized by TNF-mediated immune activation, both in the experimental and in the clinical setting.