What are all the ways i could measure the production of a protein in a cell?

Question

For example- the expression of a cytokine in macrophages following treatment with an external stimulus. At a DNA level I would use quantitative PCR, what about at a protein level?

Answer 1

If you can do your experiment in a dish you could S35 Label your cells and Immunoprecipitate the hot protein in the presence or absence of your "external stimulus".  A simple western blot would work also but isn't all that quantitative even with controls.

Also at the DNA level you may want to do a Northern Blot in addition to qPCR.

Answer 2

I Think you Have Already Hit On the Best Way, Quantitative RT-PCR for the mRNA.

Answer 3

S35 labeling will only work if your protein has sulfur containing amino acids. You could measure incoropration of some other amino acid(s), but you wouldn't know for sure if you were measuring only your protein or others as well. You could just measure the protein directly, assuming you know the identity of it.  Use immunoassay to measure the protein.  If the protein happens to be an enzyme, its good to measure not only the amount of the protein (immunoassay) but also to measure activity.