Ingested plastic transfers hazardous chemicals to fish and induces hepatic stress

By Chelsea M. Rochman, E. Hoh, T. Kurobe, S. Teh. Scientific Reports, 2013

1,806 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Plastic debris litters aquatic habitats globally, the majority of which is microscopic (< 1 mm) and is ingested by a large range of species. Risks associated with such small fragments come from the material itself and from chemical pollutants that sorb to it from surrounding water. Hazards associated with the complex mixture of plastic and accumulated pollutants are largely unknown. Here, we show that fish, exposed to a mixture of polyethylene with chemical pollutants sorbed from the marine environment, bioaccumulate these chemical pollutants and suffer liver toxicity and pathology. Fish fed virgin polyethylene fragments also show signs of stress, although less severe than fish fed marine polyethylene fragments. We provide baseline information regarding the bioaccumulation of chemicals and associated health effects from plastic ingestion in fish and demonstrate that future assessments should consider the complex mixture of the plastic material and their associated chemical pollutants.

Subfields: Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Pollution

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/55fb0a512df17e724c994df13af4da6f2c758406

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis

In Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

In Pollution

Citations in the corpus

Modeling the Role of Microplastics in Bioaccumulation of Organic Chemicals to Marine Aquatic Organisms. A Critical Review (2015, methodology): “Rochman et al. (2013b) exposed fish (Japanese medaka; Oryzias latipes) to contaminated food, to contaminated food mixed with 10 % virgin low density PE (LDPE) and to contaminated food mixed with LDPE that was pre-equilibrated in seawater.”
Characterisation, quantity and sorptive properties of microplastics extracted from cosmetics. (2015, positive): “…trials provide evidence for the role of plastics in the transfer of chemicals with subsequent adverse physiological effects (Besseling et al., 2013; Rochman et al., 2013), but studies based on bioaccumulation models concluded that the transfer of contaminants from plastics to marine organisms upon…”
Adsorption of antibiotics on microplastics. (2018, background): “POPs and PPCPs) and the combination exhibit higher lethality than MPs themselves (Browne et al., 2013; Rochman et al., 2013; Chua et al., 2014).”
Plastic and marine turtles: a review and call for research (2016, background): “…been shown to cause developmental and reproductive abnormalities in many taxa, such as egg-shell thinning and delayed ovulation in birds as well as hepatic stress in fish (Azzarello and Van Vleet, 1987; Wiemeyer et al., 1993; Oehlmann et al., 2009; Rochman et al., 2013a,b; Vegter et al., 2014).”
Microplastics in freshwater ecosystems: what we know and what we need to know (2014, result): “While different modeling studies arrive at contrasting conclusions [54,66,67], a recent experimental study demonstrates that fish exposed to contaminants sorbed to MP bioaccumulate these compounds and suffer adverse effects (glycogen depletion and histopathological alterations [68]).”
Using expert elicitation to estimate the impacts of plastic pollution on marine wildlife (2016, background): “([8,9,10], others).”
Release of synthetic microplastic plastic fibres from domestic washing machines: Effects of fabric type and washing conditions. (2016, background): “Ingestion could also facilitate the transfer of chemicals to organisms, however the relative importance of plastic debris as a vector in the transport for chemicals is not certain (Besseling et al., 2013; Rochman et al., 2013; Koelmans et al., 2013; Koelmans et al., 2014).”
Microplastics in Fish and Shellfish – A Threat to Seafood Safety? (2020, background): “Rochman et al. (2013) investigated the effects of low-density polyethylene (LDPE) microplastics (<0.5 mm) contaminated with marine environmental levels of POPs fed to Japanese medaka (Oryzias latipes) for 2 months.”
Interactions of Microplastics with Freshwater Biota (2018, background): “For instance, (1) the exposure to spiked MPs lead to an accumulation of pollutants to the tissues of lugworms (PVC, [6]), mussels (PE and PS, [59]), amphipods (PE, [79]), and fish (LDPE, [39]); (2) Besseling et al.”