2026/06/01 by Keegan C. Krause, Sayira Paola Mueses Jiménez, Franceska Duperval +3 · 1 voice
Immunology and Microbiology · Medicine · Neuroscience · #Adipokines, Inflammation, and Metabolic Diseases #Immune responses and vaccinations #Stress Responses and Cortisol
paper · doi:10.1002/ajhb.70286
openalex publication_date 2026/06/01 · openalex created_date 2026/06/03 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/27
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.