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Nanoplastics affect the inflammatory cytokine release by primary human monocytes and dendritic cells
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Researchers exposed primary human immune cells to nanoplastics of different shapes, sizes, and polymer types and measured their inflammatory responses. Irregular PVC fragments triggered the strongest release of inflammatory signaling molecules, and fragment-shaped particles consistently provoked more inflammation than spherical ones. The findings indicate that the type and shape of nanoplastics matter significantly for immune responses, and that studies using only smooth spherical particles may underestimate the real-world inflammatory potential of plastic pollution.
So far, the human health impacts of nano- and microplastics are poorly understood. Thus, we investigated whether nanoplastics exposure induces inflammatory processes in primary human monocytes and monocyte-derived dendritic cells. We exposed these cells in vitro to nanoplastics of different shapes (irregular vs. spherical), sizes (50-310 nm and polydisperse mixtures) and polymer types (polystyrene; polymethyl methacrylate; polyvinyl chloride, PVC) using concentrations of 30-300 particles cell. Our results show that irregular PVC particles induce the strongest cytokine release of these nanoplastics. Irregular polystyrene triggered a significantly higher pro-inflammatory response compared to spherical nanoplastics. The contribution of chemicals leaching from the particles was minor. The effects were concentration-dependent but varied markedly between cell donors. We conclude that nanoplastics exposure can provoke human immune cells to secrete cytokines as key initiators of inflammation. This response is specific to certain polymers (PVC) and particle shapes (fragments). Accordingly, nanoplastics cannot be considered one homogenous entity when assessing their health implications and the use of spherical polystyrene nanoplastics may underestimate their inflammatory effects.
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