Impact of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) on eosinophils isolated from male and female individuals

Abstract

It is well established that some differences exist between the male and female immune systems. Despites this, a sex-based analysis is not frequently performed in most scientific published reports. Knowing that inflammation is a common undesired effect observed resulting from nanoparticle (NP) exposure, we investigate here how in vitro treatment of gold NPs with a primary size of 20 and 70 nm (AuNP₂₀ and AuNP₇₀, respectively) will alter the biology of human eosinophils isolated from men and women blood. We found that treatment of AuNP₇₀, but not AuNP₂₀, significantly delay apoptosis only in eosinophils isolated from women. AuNPs were found to decrease eosinophil phagocytosis, however, significance was only observed in AuNP₂₀-induced eosinophils isolated from women. The production of IL-8 was significantly increased in response to both AuNPs but only in eosinophils isolated from men and the production of IL-1β was increased in AuNPs-induced eosinophils, although significance was observed only in AuNP₇₀-induced eosinophils isolated from women. We conclude that future studies investigating the toxicity of AuNPs (or other NPs) should include a sex-based analysis, especially if the tested NPs have potential medical applications knowing the increased interest in the development of personalized precision medicine.