Determination of the effects of complex carbohydrates on cytokine status of monocytes

Objectives: To determine the immunomodulatory effects of xanthan, glycated albumin and mixture of both on the induction of monocytes cytokine synthesis and the cell viability. Methods: Monocytes were cultured with xanthan, glycated albumin and mixture of xanthan/glycated albumin as treatments at different concentrations for 3 h. The quantitative determination of TNF-α, IL-6, IL-10 and IL-12 was performed in cultured monocytes by ELISA. Results and Discussion: Results obtained demonstrated that the mixture of xanthan/glycated albumin induced pro-inflammatory cytokine production, in the noticeable degree TNF-α compared to treatment and with only xanthan and/or glycated albumin. IL-6, however which has both pro- and anti-inflammatory properties seems to show more of the former than the latter in this study. The result also shown that xanthan, glycated albumin and the mixture of xanthan/glycated albumin significantly increased IL-10 production compared to other cytokines produced by the effects of the same polysaccharides and at the same concentrations. This indicated that IL-10 that is well-known in suppressing the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as TNF-α, IL-12, IL-6 as shown by several studies. Conclusion: It is safe to conclude that xanthan and glycated albumin does not possess cytotoxicity on monocytes. The data in this study also showed that monocytes cultured with both xanthan and glycated albumin are capable to convert soluble MTS into insoluble formazan even at higher concentration (10 µg/ml), compared to PMA which serve as our control. Therefore the result strongly indicated that both xanthan and glycated albumin protects cells surviving in vitro and had ability to keep the cell viability.