Figure 3

Exposure to silver nanoparticles triggers neutrophil activation. (A) Representative profiles obtained from a typical flow cytometry analysis of CD16-PeCy7 and CD62L-FITC stained control (i and iii) or 50 nM fMLP (ii and iv; n = 2) treated human neutrophils, after 4 hr (panel i and ii) or 20 hr (panel iii and iv) in vitro. (B) Representative profiles obtained from a typical flow cytometry analysis of human neutrophils 20 hr after treatment with silver nanoparticles, staining with CD16-PeCy7 and CD62L-FITC. Panel i: control, ii and iii: 5 or 20 µg AgNP; iv and v: 5 or 20 µg Ag Bulk particles per 10⁵ cells; (B) Inset panel: division of neutrophil populations based on CD62L-FITC and CD16-PeCy7 staining profile. Sub-populations were identified by further gating on their CD16 status and the percentage of CD16^bright/CD62L^dim cells (C), geometric mean of CD62L staining of CD16^bright cells (D) and geometric mean of CD11b staining of CD62^bright/CD16^dim cells (E) was analysed. Data is expressed as the mean ± SEM where n = 4. *p < 0.05 **p < 0.01 ***p < 0.001.