Significance The current widespread exposure of humans to natural as well as man-made nanomaterials due to the deployment of nanoparticles (NPs) as food additives, as vaccine- or drug-delivery vehicles, and in diagnostic procedures encourages the evaluation of their interaction with the innate immune system. Understanding how organisms cope with hydrophobic and chemically inert particulate matter, which is excluded from metabolic processing, is of major importance for interpreting the responses associated with the use of NPs in the biosphere. The containment of NPs within neutrophil-derived aggregates locally orchestrates the resolution of inflammation. Overriding this mechanism bears the risk of inducing chronic inflammation and causing tissue damage.