Daily, humans are exposed to UV filters, either directly through sunscreen products or indirectly via air, water, food, and house dust. Consequently, our bodies are continuously in contact with these chemicals, raising concerns regarding their potential impact on the immune system.
In this thesis, we investigated the effect of a 50 μM concentration of avobenzone on the phenotype and function of immature and mature dendritic cells, which represent a crucial bridge between innate and adaptive immunity. Monocytes were first isolated from peripheral blood mononuclear cells and differentiated into immature dendritic cells in the presence of IL-4 and GM-CSF.
We found that the concentration used had no effect on cell viability. In immature dendritic cells, we observed that the addition of avobenzone caused an increase in CD86 and HLA-DR levels, however, given the unchanged expression levels of CD80 and CD83, this suggests only partial phenotypic activation of the dendritic cells. It is worth noting that we only detected trends that were not statistically confirmed due to high biological variability among donors. We also observed a trend toward increased IL-8 secretion and a trend toward decreased phagocytic capacity of immature dendritic cells. In mature dendritic cells, avobenzone showed a slight reduction in the expression of dendritic cell activation surface markers, but had no effect on the secretion of inflammatory factors or phagocytic capacity.
The results indicate that avobenzone at the tested concentration does not affect the maturation process of dendritic cells. However, they suggest that it may act in the early stages of cell differentiation and influence the phenotypic and functional properties of immature dendritic cells. Due to high variability and statistically non-significant observations, further studies with a larger number of biological replicates are required to confirm these findings.
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