Department of Physical, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Siena, Siena, Italy.
Department of Biology and Evolution of Marine Organisms, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Naples, Italy.
Nanotoxicology. 2020 Dec;14(10):1415-1431. doi: 10.1080/17435390.2020.1838650. Epub 2020 Nov 13.
Nanoplastics are considered contaminants of emerging concern at the global scale. The recent evidence of their occurrence in seawater from the Mediterranean Sea calls for a thorough evaluation of their impact on marine life and in particular on vulnerable life stages such as planktonic embryos. Here, we investigated the impact of increasing nominal concentrations of 50 nm amino-modified (PS-NH) and 60 nm carboxy-modified (PS-COOH) polystyrene nanoparticles (PS NPs) on the embryonic development of the ascidian (phylum Chordata), a common benthic invertebrate living in Mediterranean coastal areas with the peculiarity of being an early chordate developmental model. A strong agglomeration of PS-COOH (approx. 1 µm) was observed in natural sea water (NSW) already at time 0, while PS-NH resulted still monodispersed (approx. 130 nm) but largely aggregated after 22 h with a microscale dimension similar to those negatively charged. However, their effect on embryos development largely differed at 22 h: PS-COOH did not affect larvae phenotypes nor their development, while PS-NH caused a dose-dependent effect (EC (22 h) of 7.52 μg mL) with various degrees of phenotype malformations (from mild to severe) and impairment of larval swimming. Embryos (up to 30%) exposed to 15 µg mLPS-NH resulted not developed and the majority was unable to hatch. Calculated PS-NH EC resulted higher than those available for other marine invertebrate species, suggesting a protective role of the egg envelopes surrounding embryos toward nanoplastics exposure.
纳米塑料被认为是全球范围内具有潜在关注的新型污染物。最近在地中海海水中发现纳米塑料的证据，要求对其对海洋生物的影响，特别是对浮游幼体等脆弱生命阶段的影响进行彻底评估。在这里，我们研究了增加 50nm 氨基修饰（PS-NH）和 60nm 羧基修饰（PS-COOH）聚苯乙烯纳米颗粒（PS NPs）的名义浓度对海鞘（脊索动物门）胚胎发育的影响，海鞘是一种常见的底栖无脊椎动物，生活在地中海沿海地区，其特点是作为一种早期脊索动物发育模型。在天然海水中（NSW），PS-COOH 已经在 0 时观察到强烈的聚集（约 1µm），而 PS-NH 仍然是单分散的（约 130nm），但在 22 小时后大量聚集，其微尺度尺寸与带负电荷的类似。然而，它们对胚胎发育的影响在 22 小时时差异很大：PS-COOH 不会影响幼虫表型或发育，而 PS-NH 则导致剂量依赖性效应（EC（22 h）为 7.52μg mL），表现出各种程度的表型畸形（从轻度到重度）和幼虫游泳能力受损。暴露于 15μg mL PS-NH 的胚胎（高达 30%）未发育，大多数无法孵化。计算出的 PS-NH EC 高于其他海洋无脊椎动物物种的 EC，表明卵壳对纳米塑料暴露具有保护作用。
