The ELISpot and FluoroSpot assays can be used in many research fields: vaccine development, cancer, allergies, monocytes/macrophages/dendritic cells characterization, apolipoproteins analysis, and veterinary research. With the ELISpot, you can study antigen-specific cytokine responses, antibody specific secreting cells, tumor antigens, granzyme B and Perforin release by T cells, vaccine efficacy, epitope mapping, cytotoxic T-cell activity, detection of IL-4, IL-5, and IL-13, vaccine-induced antibody responses, antigen-specific memory B cells, and much more.
More specifically, the T-cell ELISpot assay is used to characterize T-cell subsets. This is because the assay can detect the production of cytokines IFN-y, IL-2, TNF-alpha, IL-4, IL-5, and IL-13. The first three cytokines are produced by Th1 cells, while the last three are produced by Th2 cells. Measuring T-cell responses through cytokine production also makes it possible to study vaccine efficacy.
With T-cell FluoroSpot, you can monitor tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes. You can also analyze the IFN-y cytokine and granzyme B secretion in order to assess cytotoxic T-cell responses. Both of these are used for cancer research.
With B-cell FluoroSpot, vaccine efficacy can also be observed by quantifying the secretion of IgG, IgA, and IgM before and after a vaccination. This analysis of multiple immunoglobulins is made possible because of the fluorescence method used in the FluoroSpot.