The effect of exercise on cytokine concentration in equine autologous conditioned serum

Background Autologous conditioned serum (ACS) is a commonly administered intra‐articular treatment for the management of osteoarthritis in athletic horses. Objectives To investigate the influence of exercise on the concentration of cytokines in a non‐commercial method of ACS production. Study design Non‐randomised cross over design. Methods Whole blood was obtained from eight healthy Standardbred horses immediately prior to, 1 h and 24 h following a single bout of exhaustive exercise. Blood was processed using a non‐commercial method of ACS production. Fluorescent microsphere immunoassay (FMIA) analysis was performed to quantify Interleukin 1 receptor antagonist (IL‐1Ra), Interleukin‐10 (IL‐10), Interleukin 1β (IL‐1β) and tumour necrosis factor α (TNF‐α) concentrations at each time point. Mixed effect repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare the pre‐exercise and post‐exercise cytokine concentrations. Significance was set at P