Institute for Environmental Pollution and Health, School of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai, 200444, PR China; State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Environmental Pollution Health Risk Assessment, South China Institute of Environmental Sciences, Ministry of Ecology and Environment, Guangzhou, 510655, China.
State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Environmental Pollution Health Risk Assessment, South China Institute of Environmental Sciences, Ministry of Ecology and Environment, Guangzhou, 510655, China.
Chemosphere. 2021 Jun;272:129642. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2021.129642. Epub 2021 Jan 13.
Microplastics (MPs), emerging environmental contaminants, exhibit multiple toxicities in organisms. However, the transgenerational neurotoxicity of MPs has received little attention. Caenorhabditis elegans has been used as a model organism for studying transgenerational toxicity. In this study, the transgenerational neurotoxicity and oxidative stress of MPs were investigated over five generations (F0-F4) of C. elegans. The parental generation (F0) was exposed to polystyrene microplastics (PS-MPs) at concentrations of 0.1-100 μg/L, and subsequent generations (F1-F4) were cultured under toxicant-free conditions. The results indicated that exposure to PS-MPs at concentrations of 10-100 μg/L significantly decreased head thrash and body bends in nematodes, and this reduction was also observed in subsequent generations (F1-F2). This suggested that neurotoxicity induced by PS-MPs can be transferred from the parent to subsequent generations. Maternal exposure to 100 μg/L PS-MPs significantly enhanced ROS production and lipofuscin accumulation in subsequent generations (F1-F2), indicating that the induction of oxidative stress plays an important role in the transgenerational neurotoxicity in C. elegans. Moreover, maternal exposure to PS-MPs resulted in the transgenerational upregulation of genes related to oxidative stress (clk-1, ctl-1, sod-3, sod-4, and sod-5) in the F1-F3 generations, which indicated that these genes may be involved in regulating transgenerational neurotoxicity in C. elegans.
微塑料（MPs）作为新兴的环境污染物，在生物体内表现出多种毒性。然而，MPs 的跨代神经毒性却很少受到关注。秀丽隐杆线虫已被用作研究跨代毒性的模式生物。在这项研究中，研究了 MPs 对秀丽隐杆线虫五代（F0-F4）的跨代神经毒性和氧化应激。亲代（F0）暴露于聚苯乙烯微塑料（PS-MPs）浓度为 0.1-100μg/L，随后几代（F1-F4）在无毒剂条件下培养。结果表明，暴露于浓度为 10-100μg/L 的 PS-MPs 显著降低了线虫的头部摆动和身体弯曲，这种减少也出现在随后的几代（F1-F2）中。这表明 PS-MPs 引起的神经毒性可以从亲代传递到后代。母代暴露于 100μg/L PS-MPs 显著增加了随后几代（F1-F2）的 ROS 产生和脂褐素积累，表明氧化应激的诱导在秀丽隐杆线虫的跨代神经毒性中起着重要作用。此外，母代暴露于 PS-MPs 导致 F1-F3 代中与氧化应激相关的基因（clk-1、ctl-1、sod-3、sod-4 和 sod-5）的跨代上调，这表明这些基因可能参与调节秀丽隐杆线虫的跨代神经毒性。
