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The immunotoxicity of ten insecticides against insect hemocyte cells in vitro

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Abstract

Hemocytes in the hemolymph of insects perform innate immunity, but systematic studies to compare immunotoxicity of pesticides on hemocytes are still few. In this study, an insect hemocyte system was used to assess the impact of pesticides with different modes of action, which included loss of cell viability, inhibition of hemophagocytosis, and reduction of nitric oxide synthase (NOS) activity. Results showed that piericidin A was the most cytotoxic to hemocytes, chlorfluazuron and hexaflumuron were the next. Also, piericidin A, chlorfenapyr, and fipronil had strong inhibitory effects on hemophagocytosis, and the effects of piericidin A and chlorfenapyr were persistent, while that of fipronil was short-lived. Moreover, fenoxycarb and hexaflumuron selectively inhibited granulocyte phagocytosis, tebufenozide only showed inhibition on plasmatocyte phagocytosis, but both inhibitory effects were transient. Furthermore, fenoxycarb and hexaflumuron showed a short-term strong inhibitory effect on the activity of NOS, chlorfenapyr and piericidin A showed a weak induction of NOS activity, while other pesticides exhibited a strong induction. Taken together, piericidin A was the most toxic and imidacloprid was the least toxic to hemocytes, and the alterations in hemocyte functions compromised immunity.

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Funding

This work was supported in part by the Shanghai Committee of Science and Technology in China under Grant 21S11901400 and Grant 22N41900100.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shanghai Key Lab of Chemical Biology, School of Pharmacy, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, 200237, China

    Dongmei Yan, Jialin Xu, Yongjun Chen & Qingchun Huang

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  1. Dongmei Yan
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  2. Jialin Xu
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  3. Yongjun Chen
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  4. Qingchun Huang
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Contributions

Dongmei Yan, Jialin Xu, and Yongjun Chen performed the experiments; collected the data; and written the first draft. Qingchun Huang designed the experiments, prepared the figures, and edited the second draft. Data analysis was performed by all authors. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Qingchun Huang.

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Yan, D., Xu, J., Chen, Y. et al. The immunotoxicity of ten insecticides against insect hemocyte cells in vitro. In Vitro Cell.Dev.Biol.-Animal 58, 912–921 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11626-022-00738-y

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