Polystyrene microplastics (PS-MPs): A Review on metabolic disruptions and potential obesogenic implications using -omics approaches based evidences on zebrafish model

The ubiquitous exposure of living organisms to microplastics (MPs) is well documented. In particular, polystyrene MPs (PS-MPs) are among the most frequently detected and persistent plastics in the environment. Recently, growing evidence showed that PS-MPs could interfere with several metabolic pathways, resulting in alteration of lipid and energy metabolism, as well as multiple metabolic disorders, in zebrafish (ZF). These findings may support the obesogenic potential of MPs, which could be unsuspected key drivers of obesity's expanding prevalence in the world over the last decades, particularly with the parallel increase in plastics production. In this Review, we focus on recent -omics based studies to provide a comprehensive synthesis of the metabolic disturbances provoked by PS-MPs and their obesogenic potential in ZF. This literature Review revealed that PS-MPs could induce metabolic alterations, mostly affecting glycolipid metabolism and energy homeostasis at the transcriptomic and metabolomic levels. Microbiota dysbiosis may also largely contribute to the obesogenic effects. Although some key pathways are suggested as candidate obesogenic mechanisms of PS-MPs additional studies integrating multi-omics approaches are needed to fully understand the mechanistic/molecular basis of PS-MPs in ZF. Functional analyses such as mitochondrial respiration assays, microbiota manipulation/transplantation as well as in vitro mechanistic studies are also required to support -omics findings.