School of Resources & Environmental Science, Hubei International Scientific and Technological Cooperation Base of Sustainable Resource and Energy, Hubei Key Laboratory of Biomass-Resources Chemistry and Environmental Biotechnology, Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei 430079, PR China.
Key Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics of Ministry of Education, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, PR China.
Sci Total Environ. 2024 Jul 15;934:173218. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.173218. Epub 2024 May 17.
Micro/nano-plastics, as emerging persistent pollutant, are frequently detected in aquatic environments together with other environmental pollutants. Microalgae are the major primary producers and bear an important responsibility for maintaining the balance of aquatic ecosystems. Numerous studies have been conducted on the influence of micro/nano-plastics on the growth, photosynthesis, oxidative stress, gene expression and metabolites of microalgae in laboratory studies. However, it is difficult to comprehensively evaluate the toxic effects of micro/nano-plastics on microalgae due to different experimental designs. Moreover, there is a lack of effective analysis of the aforementioned multi-omics data and reports on shared biological patterns. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to compare the acute, chronic, pulsed, and combined effect of micro/nano-plastics on microalgae and explore hidden rules in the molecular mechanisms of the interaction between them. Results showed that the effect of micro/nano-plastics on microalgae was related to exposure mode, exposure duration, exposure size, concentration, and type of micro/nano-plastics. Meanwhile, the phenomenon of poisoning and detoxification between micro/nano-plastics and microalgae was found. The inhibitory mechanism of micro/nano-plastics on algal growth was due to the micro/nano-plastics affected the photosynthesis, oxidative phosphorylation, and ribosome pathways of algal cells. This brought the disruption of the functions of chloroplasts, mitochondria, and ribosome, as well as impacted on energy metabolism and translation pathways, eventually leading to impairment of cell function. Besides, algae resisted this inhibitory effect by regulating the alanine, aspartate, and glutamate metabolism and purine metabolism pathways, thereby increasing the chlorophyll synthesis, inhibiting the increase of reactive oxygen species, delaying the process of lipid peroxidation, balancing the osmotic pressure of cell membrane.
微/纳米塑料作为新兴的持久性污染物，常与其他环境污染物一起在水生环境中被检出。微藻是主要的初级生产者，对维持水生生态系统的平衡负有重要责任。已有大量研究报道了微/纳米塑料对实验室培养的微藻生长、光合作用、氧化应激、基因表达和代谢物的影响。然而，由于实验设计的不同，很难全面评估微/纳米塑料对微藻的毒性作用。此外，缺乏对上述多组学数据的有效分析以及对共同生物模式的报告。因此，本综述的目的是比较微/纳米塑料对微藻的急性、慢性、脉冲和联合效应，并探索它们相互作用的分子机制中的隐藏规律。结果表明，微/纳米塑料对微藻的影响与暴露模式、暴露时间、暴露尺寸、浓度和类型有关。同时，还发现了微/纳米塑料和微藻之间存在的解毒和中毒现象。微/纳米塑料抑制藻类生长的机制是由于微/纳米塑料影响了藻类细胞的光合作用、氧化磷酸化和核糖体途径，从而破坏了叶绿体、线粒体和核糖体的功能，并影响了能量代谢和翻译途径，最终导致细胞功能受损。此外，藻类通过调节丙氨酸、天冬氨酸和谷氨酸代谢和嘌呤代谢途径来抵抗这种抑制作用，从而增加叶绿素的合成，抑制活性氧的增加，延缓脂质过氧化过程，平衡细胞膜的渗透压。
