title: Effects of formaldehyde exposure on human NK cells in vitro.
abstract: Natural killer (NK) cells play a pivotal role in human immunologic surveillance. Formaldehyde (FA), a ubiquitous environmental contaminant, has been classified as a carcinogen to humans. Although it is known that immune cells are sensitive to FA, so far little is known about how it's affecting the activity of human NK cells. To probe it, the primary human NK cells were treated with different concentrations of FA (3200, 1600, 800, 400, 200, 100, 50, and 0 μM) in vitro. The morphology, viability, apoptosis, cytotoxicity (killing tumor cell activity) and cytokine and cytolytic proteins secretion of NK cells were evaluated respectively. Our results reveal that FA could induce NK cells death obviously in a concentration-dependent manner. With the decreased concentrations of FA from 3200 μM to 800 μM, accordingly, the viability of NK cells increased from 65. 2 ± 12.1% to 78.48 ± 10.3% (p<0.05), and the cytotoxicity of NK cells recovered from 29.2 ± 8.5% to 63.9 ± 5.9% (p<0.05). The secretion of perforin was affected significantly by FA, whereas the secretion of IFN-γ and granzyme-B altered slightly. It is concluded that human NK cell is sensitive to FA, 800 μM may be a critical concentration of FA inhibiting the activity of human NK cell.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory for Space Bioscience & Biotechnology, School of Life Science, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, Shaan Xi Province, PR China.
authors.forename: Qi
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Qibing
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Mei
authors.forename: Ting
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Huyan
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.forename: Su
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Che
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Mingjie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Qingsheng
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Huang
mesh_terms: D017209:Apoptosis / Q000187:drug effects; D002470:Cell Survival / Q000187:drug effects; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D016207:Cytokines / Q000378:metabolism; D004785:Environmental Pollutants / Q000633:toxicity*; D005557:Formaldehyde / Q000633:toxicity*; D053804:Granzymes / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D007371:Interferon-gamma / Q000378:metabolism; D007694:Killer Cells, Natural / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D054353:Perforin / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D016207:Cytokines; D004785:Environmental Pollutants; D054353:Perforin; D005557:Formaldehyde; D007371:Interferon-gamma; D053804:Granzymes
keywords: CCTCC; China Center for Type Culture Collection; Cytotoxicity; FA; Formaldehyde; IARC; In vitro; International Agency for Research on Cancer; NK cell; Natural killer cell; PBMC; formaldehyde; natural killer cell; peripheral blood mononuclear cell