Comparison of highly sensitive, multiplex immunoassay platforms for streamlined clinical cytokine quantification

Area of Science:

• Biotechnology
• Assay Development
• Immunology

Background:

• Quantifying cytokines is critical in biological research and drug development.
• Numerous assay platforms exist, making optimal selection challenging due to performance variability.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the performance of three sensitive, multiplex cytokine assays: MSD S-plex, Olink Target 48, and Quanterix SP-X.
• To benchmark these platforms against the widely used MSD V-plex assay.

Main Methods:

• Serum and plasma samples were analyzed across all platforms.
• Analyte quantification, sample quantifiability, and correlation were assessed.
• MSD S-plex specificity was validated using parallelism and antibody knockdown experiments.

Main Results:

• MSD S-plex exhibited the highest sensitivity, followed by Olink Target 48, Quanterix SP-X, and MSD V-plex.
• While concentrations varied between platforms, strong correlations were observed.
• MSD S-plex results were validated through specificity experiments.

Conclusions:

• MSD S-plex is recommended as a priority platform for ultra-sensitive cytokine assays.
• Olink Target 48 offers a valuable combination of sensitivity and multiplexing for broad cytokine analysis.
• All evaluated platforms (MSD V-plex, MSD S-plex, Olink) are useful in drug development, but performance must be validated per analyte.