Detection of immunotoxic effects of estrogenic and androgenic endocrine disrupting compounds using splenic immune cells of the female three-spined stickleback, Gasterosteus aculeatus (L.)

• Understand ex vivo effects of hormones on fish non-specific immune activities.
• Natural hormones were rather immunostimulant.
• Mimic-hormones were rather immunosuppressive.
• Stickleback is attractive to explore relationship between hormones and immunotoxicity.

Today, the list of endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) in freshwater and marine environments that mimic or block endogenous hormones is expanding at an alarming rate. As immune and reproductive systems may interact in a bidirectional way, some authors proposed the immune capacities as attractive markers to evaluate the hormonal potential of environmental samples. Thus, the present work proposed to gain more knowledge on direct biological effects of natural and EDCs on female fish splenic leucocyte non-specific immune activities by using ex vivo assays. After determining the optimal required conditions to analyze splenic immune responses, seven different EDCs were tested ex vivo at 0.01, 1 and 100 nM over 12 h on the leucocyte functions of female three-spined stickleback, Gasterosteus aculeatus. In summary, we found that natural hormones acted as immunostimulants, whilst EDCs were immunosuppressive.