Hello Kevin,  

yes, both the choice of adjuvant and the immunogen can and will influence the cytokine profile of your immunization experiments. It is often valuable to initiallly investigate the effects of the antigen/immunizing agent alone to know its immune stimulating properties, and thereafter see how a added adjuvant can influence the response patterns. This basic knowledge is essential for understanding the impact of the different ingredients in your immunization procedure.

Also the localization where you give your immunogen and the dose you use of the immunizing agent will usually influence the cytokine pattern.

Best regards

Jorma H

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26791076

Different human vaccine adjuvants promote distinct antigen-independent immunological signatures tailored to different pathogens.`

This shoud help answer your questions.

Best

Darragh

Hi Kevin, I also had the same question for my experiments. But, as Dr. Darragh and Dr. Jorma said, depending on the adjuvant that you use, you can stimulate different immune responses. You have to take into account which arm of the immune system you want to stimulate. For examples, I work with leishmaniasis and then I use adjuvants which potentiate a Th1 immune response. Together with my antigen, I don't need to add adjuvant again when I re-stimulate spleen cells after immunization, I just added the antigen itself.

Good luck!