Abstract
The thoracic and peritoneal cavities are lined by serous membranes and are home of the serosal immune system. This immune system fuses innate and adaptive immunity, to maintain local homeostasis and repair local tissue damage, and to cooperate closely with the mucosal immune system. Innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) are found abundantly in the thoracic and peritoneal cavities, and they are crucial in first defense against pathogenic viruses and bacteria. Nanomaterials (NMs) can enter the cavities intentionally for medical purposes, or unintentionally following environmental exposure; subsequent serosal inflammation and cancer (mesothelioma) has gained significant interest. However, reports on adverse effects of NM on ILCs and other components of the serosal immune system are scarce or even lacking. As ILCs are crucial in the first defense against pathogenic viruses and bacteria, it is possible that serosal exposure to NM may lead to a reduced resistance against pathogens. Additionally, affected serosal lymphoid tissues and cells may disturb adipose tissue homeostasis. This review aims to provide insight into key effects of NM on the serosal immune system.
Highlights
Immunotoxicology, Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Utrecht University, Yalelaan 1, Innovative Testing in Life Sciences & Chemistry, Research Centre for Healthy and Sustainable Living, University of Applied Sciences Utrecht, Padualaan 97, 3584 CH Utrecht, The Netherlands
The body has two large coelomic cavities, the thoracic and abdominopelvic cavities, which in turn are subdivided (Figure 1). They may appear well shielded from environmental exposure to nanomaterials (NM), but inhaled particles including NM can be translocated to the thoracic cavity when not cleared already by the respiratory mucosal defense [1,2,3,4,5]
Intraperitoneal drug delivery by NM can be superior to systemic drug delivery, because of higher local concentration and less of the normally expected side effects [9], but again it is important to understand if and how they react with the local lymphoid tissues and cells
Summary
A considerable part of inhaled NM deposit in the alveoli. They can remain there or can be transported to the draining lymph nodes, to organs like the liver, kidneys, spleen, and heart, to the chest wall and diaphragm/parietal serosa [3,48] and into pleural fluid [49]. NM may enter the thorax space directly, whether or not as part of a local inflammatory process: NM were observed penetrating the lung pleura (multiwalled carbon nanotubes in rats and mice) [48,51,52]. Agglomerated multiwalled carbon nanotubes appeared to penetrate alveolar septa as well (Figure 3 in [53]), supporting the observation that even agglomerated NM can penetrate tissues. A review of kinetics of NM, mainly nanotubes, is given by [54]
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