Table 1.

A summary of primary research studies investigating the effects of androgens on murine macrophages in vitro.

Species	Cell type	Source	Sex	Purpose	Experimental design	In vitro	Key findings	Analysis technique	Reference
Mouse	Macrophage J774 cell line	Ascites	Female	Investigate the effects of testosterone on murine macrophage production of cytokine	Murine macrophages were cultured with testosterone for 24–48 h and cytokine production was measured	In vitro	Testosterone treatment induced spontaneous or LPS-mediated production of IL-10 and reduction of NO and TNF	ELISA and Griess reaction	D’Agostino et al. (1999)
Mouse	Macrophage RAW 264.7 cell line	Cancer (Abelson leukaemia virus)	Male	Investigate the effect of testosterone on inducible NO synthesis in murine macrophages	Murine macrophages were stimulated with LPS and were exposed to increasing levels of testosterone (0.1–40 µM)	In vitro	Testosterone treatment led to a dose- dependent inhibition of NO and NOS	Griess reaction and Immunoblotting	Friedl et al. (2000)
Mouse	Macrophage	Peritoneal cavity	Male	To investigate the effect of testosterone or DHT on murine macrophages	Peritoneal macrophages were cultured with testosterone or DHT and cytokine production was measured	In vitro	Administration of testosterone and DHT led to an increase in the expression of the IL6 gene but had no effect on TNF and TGFB1	ELISA	Gilliver et al. (2006)
ND	Macrophage	Bone marrow	ND	To investigate the effect of testosterone on the apoptosis of BM-derived macrophages	BM-derived macrophages were stimulated with testosterone in the presence or absence of M-CSF	In vitro	Administration of testosterone can induce apoptosis of BM-derived macrophages, increased expression of caspase 3, caspase 8 and PARP. Blockade of FADD (upstream of caspase 8 in the FAS/FASL pathway) led to reduced expression of caspase 8 and apoptosis	Flow cytometry, RT-PCR and western blot	Jin et al. (2006)
Mouse	Macrophage RAW 264.7 cell line	Cancer (Abelson leukaemia virus)	Male	Investigate the effect of testosterone on the expression of TLR4 on murine macrophages	Murine macrophages were exposure to various levels of testosterone propionate (1–1000 nM) for different time periods	In vitro	Administration of testosterone led to a decrease in TLR4 expression. These results were corroborated in peritoneal macrophages from orchiectomised mice	Flow cytometry	Rettew et al. (2008)

BM, bone marrow; DHT, dihydrotestosterone; ELISA, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay; FADD, FAS-associated death domain; FAS, FAS cell surface death receptor; FASL, Fas ligand; IL-6, interleukin 6; IL-10, interleukin 10; LPS, lipopolysaccharide; M-CSF, macrophage colony-stimulating factor; ND, not described; NO, nitric oxide; NOS, nitric oxide synthase; PARP, poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase; RT-PCR, reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction; TGFB1, transforming growth factor beta 1; TLR4, toll-like receptor 4; TNF, tumour necrosis factor.