Maternal Polystyrene Microplastic Exposure during Gestation and Lactation Altered Metabolic Homeostasis in the Dams and Their F1 and F2 Offspring

Abstract

Microplastics (MPs) are considered as a pollutant of marine environments and have become a global environmental problem in recent years. A number of studies have demonstrated that MPs can enter the human food chain, and MPs have even been detected in human stools. Therefore, there is increasing concern about the potential risks of MPs to human and animal health. Here, we investigated maternal polystyrene MPs exposure during gestation and lactation and evaluated the potential effects on dams and the F1 (both PND 42 and 280) and F2 (PND 42) generations. The results of transcriptome and 16S rRNA sequencing indicated that MPs caused the metabolic disorder in maternal MPs associated with gut microbiota dysbiosis and gut barrier dysfunction. Simultaneously, maternal MPs exposure also had the intergenerational effects and even caused long-term metabolic consequences in the F1 and F2 generations. In addition, in F1 (PND 42), the composition of gut microbiota did not change significantly, while the hepatic transcriptome and serum metabolite changes showed the potential risk in metabolic disorder. Then, the potential of hepatic lipid accumulation was observed in adult F1 mice (PND 280), especially in the female mice. Our results demonstrated that maternal MPs exposure during gestation and lactation increases the risk of metabolic disorder, and these results provide new insight into the potential long-term hazards of MPs.

Toxicity of Microplastics and Nanoplastics in Mammalian Systems

“…In mice, ingested MPs/NPs could be found in the gut [102][103][104][105], liver [102,103,105], and kidney [102,105]. Pathological changes to the gut include a reduction in mucus secretion [90], gut barrier dysfunction [104,106], intestinal inflammation [107] and gut microbiota dysbiosis [90,104,106,107]. Liver pathologies documented include inflammation and lipid accumulation or lipid profile changes [90,102,106], as well as changes in the markers of lipid metabolism [90,105,108].…”

“…Pathological changes to the gut include a reduction in mucus secretion [90], gut barrier dysfunction [104,106], intestinal inflammation [107] and gut microbiota dysbiosis [90,104,106,107]. Liver pathologies documented include inflammation and lipid accumulation or lipid profile changes [90,102,106], as well as changes in the markers of lipid metabolism [90,105,108]. Other metabolic problems noted by omics-type analyses include disorders in energy metabolism [102,105] and bile acid metabolism [104].…”

“…Recently, Luo and colleagues documented that maternal exposure to PS during gestation causes metabolic disorders in the offspring [106,108]. As in fishes, MPs aggravated the toxicity of an environmental toxicant, organophosphorus flame retardants (OPFRs) [103].…”

“…One of the more common findings in the mice studies is gut microbiota dysbiosis [90,104,106,107]. Changes in gut microbiome could result in gustatory dysfunction, thus perturbing physiological homeostasis in general.…”

Current Insights into Monitoring, Bioaccumulation, and Potential Health Effects of Microplastics Present in the Food Chain

“…The research group of the Zhejiang University of Technology (China) conducted a set of four studies with mice and examined various effects, including potential effects on the gut microbiome and on F1 and F2 offspring [58][59][60][61]. Exposure levels were comparable and the size ranges matched each other ( [58,60]: 0.5 µm and 50 µm PS; [59,61]: 5 µm PS).…”