Microplastics cause neurotoxicity, oxidative damage and energy-related changes and interact with the bioaccumulation of mercury in the European seabass, Dicentrarchus labrax (Linnaeus, 1758).
By L. G. Barboza, L. Vieira, V. Branco, N. Figueiredo, F. Carvalho, C. Carvalho, L. Guilhermino. Aquatic Toxicology, 2018
603 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Microplastics pollution is a global paradigm that raises concern in relation to environmental and human health. This study investigated toxic effects of microplastics and mercury in the European seabass (Dicentrarchus labrax), a marine fish widely used as food for humans. A short-term (96 h) laboratory bioassay was done by exposing juvenile fish to microplastics (0.26 and 0.69 mg/L), mercury (0.010 and 0.016 mg/L) and binary mixtures of the two substances using the same concentrations, through test media. Microplastics alone and mercury alone caused neurotoxicity through acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibition, increased lipid oxidation (LPO) in brain and muscle, and changed the activities of the energy-related enzymes lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH). All the mixtures caused significant inhibition of brain AChE activity (64-76%), and significant increase of LPO levels in brain (2.9-3.4 fold) and muscle (2.2-2.9 fold) but not in a concentration-dependent manner; mixtures containing low and high concentrations of microplastics caused different effects on IDH and LDH activity. Mercury was found to accumulate in the brain and muscle, with bioaccumulation factors of 4-7 and 25-40, respectively. Moreover, in the analysis of mercury concentrations in both tissues, a significant interaction between mercury and microplastics was found. The decay of mercury in the water increased with microplastics concentration, and was higher in the presence of fish than in their absence. Overall, these results indicate that: microplastics influence the bioaccumulation of mercury by D. labrax juveniles; microplastics, mercury and their mixtures (ppb range concentrations) cause neurotoxicity, oxidative stress and damage, and changes in the activities of energy-related enzymes in juveniles of this species; mixtures with the lowest and highest concentrations of their components induced different effects on some biomarkers. These findings and other published in the literature raise concern regarding high level predators and humans consuming fish being exposed to microplastics and heavy metals, and highlight the need of more research on the topic.
Subfields: Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis, Materials Chemistry, Pollution
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0f14af7192d4d2208ec06fe4fe8cb54784d18fd9
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Citations in the corpus
- Contributions of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy in microplastic pollution research: A review (2020, background): “…(Garrido et al., 2019), (3) histopathological damage and/or death (Lei et al., 2018), (4) Oxidative stress (Yu et al., 2018), (5) neurotoxicity (Barboza et al., 2018), (6) immune system responses (Avio et al., 2015), (7) changes in gene expression (Rochman et al., 2014, 2015), and (8) energy…”
- Toxicity of Microplastics and Nanoplastics in Mammalian Systems (2020, background): “…(AChE) activity and increase lipid oxidation in brain and muscle • Changes in activity of metabolic enzymes • Interactions and influences on mercury bioaccumulation Barboza et al., 2018 [49] Crucian Carp (Carassius carassius) Amino-modified positively charged PS nanoparticles (52 nm) Trophic…”
- MICROPLASTICS INGESTION BY FRESHWATER FISH IN THE CHI RIVER, THAILAND (2020, background): “Microplastic ingestion also leads to neurotoxicity and oxidative damage in marine fish [16] and reduction in photosynthetic activity and chlorophyll a of algae [17].”
- A Global Perspective on Microplastics (2020, background): “Most such studies examined organic pollutants, but Barboza et al. (2018) evaluated interactions between mercury and microplastics, and resulting toxicological implications in fish.”