Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche, Università Degli Studi di Sassari, Sassari, Italy.
Laboratorio Nazionale di Medicina e Farmacologia di Genere, Istituto Nazionale Biostrutture Biosistemi, Sassari, Italy.
J Cell Physiol. 2022 Jan;237(1):580-588. doi: 10.1002/jcp.30503. Epub 2021 Jul 12.
Monocytes play a critical role in inflammation and immune response, their activity being sex-dependent. However, the basis of sex differences is not well understood. Therefore, we investigated the lipopolysaccharide (LPS) effects on tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) release, autophagy, and chemotaxis in freshly isolated monocytes from healthy young men and women. In basal conditions, male and female monocytes had similar TNF-α release, chemotaxis, and estrogen receptors (ER-α) and ER-β expression, while the LC3II/I ratio was significantly higher in males. LPS treatment induced qualitative and quantitative sex differences. It reduced autophagy and increased TNF-α release only in male monocytes, while, chemotaxis was significantly influenced only in female cells. Moreover, it reduced the expression of ER-α only in female cells, while ER-β expression was reduced in both sexes, but more markedly in female cells. Finally, the interplay between LPS treatment and 17-β-estradiol (E ) was present only in female cells. Globally, these findings expand the concept that sex plays a role in regulating monocytes' functions, being sex differences cell- and parameter-specific.
单核细胞在炎症和免疫反应中起着关键作用，其活性具有性别依赖性。然而，性别差异的基础尚不清楚。因此，我们研究了脂多糖 (LPS) 对健康年轻男性和女性新鲜分离单核细胞中肿瘤坏死因子-α (TNF-α) 释放、自噬和趋化作用的影响。在基础条件下，男性和女性单核细胞的 TNF-α 释放、趋化作用以及雌激素受体 (ER-α) 和 ER-β 的表达相似，而 LC3II/I 比值在男性中明显更高。LPS 处理诱导了定性和定量的性别差异。它仅在男性单核细胞中减少自噬并增加 TNF-α 释放，而趋化作用仅在女性细胞中受到显著影响。此外，它仅在女性细胞中降低 ER-α 的表达，而 ER-β 的表达在两性中均降低，但在女性细胞中更为明显。最后，LPS 处理和 17-β-雌二醇 (E2) 之间的相互作用仅存在于女性细胞中。总体而言，这些发现扩展了性别的概念，即性别在调节单核细胞功能方面发挥作用，性别差异具有细胞和参数特异性。
