Sun Xiangying, Zhuang Yin, Wang Yubang, Zhang Zhenbo, An Lihui, Xu Qiujin
State Key Laboratory of Environmental Criteria and Risk Assessment, Chinese Research Academy of Environment Science, Beijing 100012, China; Center for Global Health, School of Public Health, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 211166, China; Kaifeng Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Kaifeng, Henan 475000, China.
Center for Global Health, School of Public Health, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 211166, China.
Ecotoxicol Environ Saf. 2025 Apr 1;294:118119. doi: 10.1016/j.ecoenv.2025.118119. Epub 2025 Mar 31.
Polyethylene terephthalate microplastics (PET-MPs) have been detected in the environment and human metabolites or tissues; however, their potential effects on humans under actual exposure doses remain unclear. Herein, male adult mice were exposed to 10 µm PET-MPs at concentrations of 10, 50, and 250 mg/kg per body weight consecutively for 28 days. Changes in blood biochemistry, inflammatory factors, colonic histopathology, colonic mucus gene mRNA levels, and the gut microflora were monitored to study PET-MPs toxicity. The results showed that PET-MPs exposure increased relative serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and glucose (GLU) levels in 50 mg/kg bw PET-MPs exposure group, and altered relative levels of inflammatory factors, thereby inducing the inflammatory response. Moreover, PET-MPs exposure increased mRNA expression levels of colonic mucus secretion related and barrier function related genes, indicating intestinal mucus secretion and barrier integrity dysfunction, which was consistent with the results of histopathological results. In addition, gut microbiota analysis revealed that the diversity and community composition were altered after PET-MPs exposure, suggesting a metabolic disorder. Therefore, our results demonstrated that exposure to PET-MPs led to intestinal injury and changes in the gut microbiome composition in mice. Overall, the study findings provided basic data about the health risks of PET-MPs to humans, highlighting that MPs-induced toxicity warrants more concern in the future.
环境和人类代谢产物或组织中已检测到聚对苯二甲酸乙二酯微塑料（PET-MPs）；然而，在实际暴露剂量下它们对人类的潜在影响仍不清楚。在此，成年雄性小鼠连续28天暴露于浓度为10、50和250mg/kg体重的10μm PET-MPs中。监测血液生化、炎症因子、结肠组织病理学、结肠黏液基因mRNA水平和肠道微生物群的变化，以研究PET-MPs的毒性。结果表明，在50mg/kg bw PET-MPs暴露组中，PET-MPs暴露增加了血清丙氨酸氨基转移酶（ALT）和葡萄糖（GLU）的相对水平，并改变了炎症因子的相对水平，从而引发炎症反应。此外，PET-MPs暴露增加了结肠黏液分泌相关基因和屏障功能相关基因的mRNA表达水平，表明肠道黏液分泌和屏障完整性功能障碍，这与组织病理学结果一致。此外，肠道微生物群分析显示，PET-MPs暴露后多样性和群落组成发生了改变，表明存在代谢紊乱。因此，我们的结果表明，暴露于PET-MPs会导致小鼠肠道损伤和肠道微生物群组成的变化。总体而言，研究结果提供了有关PET-MPs对人类健康风险的基础数据，强调微塑料引起的毒性在未来值得更多关注。
