School of Environment and Guangdong Key Laboratory of Environmental Pollution and Health, Jinan University, Guangzhou 510632, China.
State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, School of the Environment, Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210023, China.
Environ Sci Technol. 2022 Nov 15;56(22):15805-15817. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.1c07933. Epub 2022 Oct 25.
The question of whether long-term chronic exposure to microplastics (MPs) could induce dose- and size-dependent adverse effects in mammals remains controversial and poorly understood. Our study explored potential health risks from dietary exposure to environmentally relevant doses of polystyrene (PS) MPs, through a mouse model and integrated analyses of the interruptions of fecal microbial metagenomes and plasma lipidomes. After 21 weeks of exposure to the MPs (40-100 μm), mice mainly exhibited gut microbiota dysbiosis, tissue inflammation, and plasma lipid metabolism disorder, although no notable accumulation of MPs was observed in the gut or liver. The change of the relative abundance of microbiota was strongly associated with the exposure dose and size of MPs while less significant effects were observed in gut damage and abnormal lipid metabolism. Moreover, multiomics data suggested that the host abnormal lipid metabolism was closely related to bowel function disruptions, including gut microbiota dysbiosis, increased gut permeability, and inflammation induced by MPs. We revealed for the first time that even without notable accumulation in mouse tissues, long-term exposure to MPs at environmentally relevant doses could still induce widespread health risks. This raises concern on the health risks from the exposure of humans and other mammals to environmentally relevant dose MPs.
长期慢性暴露于微塑料（MPs）是否会在哺乳动物中引起剂量和大小依赖性的不良影响，这一问题仍然存在争议，人们对此了解甚少。我们通过一个小鼠模型和对粪便微生物宏基因组和血浆脂质组学中断的综合分析，研究了通过饮食暴露于环境相关剂量聚苯乙烯（PS）MPs 可能产生的潜在健康风险。在暴露于 MPs（40-100μm）21 周后，尽管在肠道或肝脏中没有观察到 MPs 的明显积累，但小鼠主要表现出肠道微生物群落失调、组织炎症和血浆脂质代谢紊乱。微生物群落的相对丰度的变化与 MPs 的暴露剂量和大小强烈相关，而在肠道损伤和异常脂质代谢方面则观察到的影响较小。此外，多组学数据表明，宿主异常脂质代谢与肠道功能紊乱密切相关，包括肠道微生物群落失调、肠道通透性增加和 MPs 引起的炎症。我们首次揭示，即使在小鼠组织中没有明显积累的情况下，长期暴露于环境相关剂量的 MPs 仍可能会引起广泛的健康风险。这引起了人们对人类和其他哺乳动物暴露于环境相关剂量 MPs 所带来的健康风险的关注。
