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

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.