CAS Key Laboratory of Coastal Environmental Processes and Ecological Remediation, Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research (YIC), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Shandong Key Laboratory of Coastal Environmental Processes, YICCAS, Yantai 264003, PR China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, PR China.
CAS Key Laboratory of Coastal Environmental Processes and Ecological Remediation, Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research (YIC), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Shandong Key Laboratory of Coastal Environmental Processes, YICCAS, Yantai 264003, PR China; Center for Ocean Mega-Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Qingdao 266071, PR China.
Sci Total Environ. 2021 Aug 20;783:147076. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147076. Epub 2021 Apr 14.
Microplastics (MPs) attract global concern due to their ubiquitous existence in aquatic environments. However, the genotoxic effect of MPs on aquatic organisms in the natural environment remains controversial. Therefore, this meta-analysis was conducted by recompiling 44 individual studies from 12 publications to determine whether MPs could induce genotoxicity in aquatic organisms at environmentally relevant concentrations (≤1 mg/L, median = 0.5 mg/L). Multiple genotoxic endpoints were involved, including the percentage of DNA in tail (TDNA%), tail length (TL), olive tail moment (OTM), and the number of micronuclei (NM), and their increases represented the biologically adverse effects (i.e. genotoxicity). The results showed that all included endpoints tended to increase after exposure to MPs, among which TDNA%, TL and NM were significantly increased by 20%, 32% and 81% compared with the control group, respectively. The overall estimate of all endpoints in the MPs-treated groups was remarkably increased by 24%, with high statistical power and no obvious publication bias, suggesting the evident genotoxicity caused by MPs. In addition, the magnitudes of MPs-induced genotoxicity were independent of selected endpoint, MP composition, morphology, exposure concentration and duration, but closely correlated with particle size, living habitat and tested species. Overall, this work provided a reference for the health risk assessment of MPs in the natural environment, contributing to our understanding the action mode of MPs at environmentally relevant concentrations.
微塑料（MPs）由于其在水生环境中的普遍存在而引起了全球关注。然而，MPs 在自然环境中对水生生物的遗传毒性效应仍存在争议。因此，本研究通过重新编译来自 12 篇文献的 44 项个体研究，以确定 MPs 在环境相关浓度（≤1mg/L，中位数=0.5mg/L）下是否会对水生生物产生遗传毒性。涉及多种遗传毒性终点，包括尾部 DNA 含量百分比（TDNA%）、尾部长度（TL）、橄榄尾矩（OTM）和微核数（NM），它们的增加代表了生物不利影响（即遗传毒性）。结果表明，所有纳入的终点在暴露于 MPs 后均有增加趋势，其中 TDNA%、TL 和 NM 分别比对照组显著增加了 20%、32%和 81%。 MPs 处理组所有终点的总体估计值显著增加了 24%，具有较高的统计功效且不存在明显的发表偏倚，表明 MPs 具有明显的遗传毒性。此外，MPs 诱导的遗传毒性的程度与所选终点、MP 组成、形态、暴露浓度和暴露时间无关，但与粒径、生活栖息地和受试物种密切相关。总的来说，这项工作为 MPs 在自然环境中的健康风险评估提供了参考，有助于我们了解 MPs 在环境相关浓度下的作用模式。
