Development of an assay to discriminate between native and truncated CXCL10 chemokine

While CXCL10 is known as a proinflammatory chemokine that is responsible for recruiting activated lymphocytes to the liver in HCV infected patients, elevated levels of CXCL10 were surprisingly shown to be a negative prognostic marker for response to therapy Development of an assay to discriminate between native and truncated CXCL10 chemokine Serial panning of the HuCAL PLATINUM® antibody library has isolated selective probes which permit differential quantification for two forms of the inflammatory chemokine CXCL10 in biological samples. The antibodies bind specifically to either native CXCL10 or an antagonist form, which is truncated by just two amino acids at the N-terminus. Assays with these antibodies have revealed high levels of antagonist chemokine in chronic HCV patients. Supplementary studies show dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP4) is responsible for this cleavage, making it a putative target for adjuvant HCV therapeutics in non-responsive patients