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Polypropylene Nanoplastic Exposure to Respiratory Epithelial Barrier‐On‐Chip and Interfacial Interactions With Human Serum Albumin
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Researchers exposed a lung-on-chip respiratory epithelial barrier to polypropylene nanoplastics and found disrupted tight-junction and ACE2 expression, elevated oxidative stress, and proinflammatory signaling, while computational modeling revealed that inhaled particles form protein coronas and adsorb to blood albumin in a biphasic pattern with sex-dependent differences.
with altered ZO-1 and ACE2 expression, as well as an increased proinflammatory response and intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels. [Correction added on 15 April 2026, after first online publication: The word "suppressed" has been deleted from the abstract.] The size of NPs increased to 364 nm after incubation with cell culture medium, indicating protein corona formation. The simulation revealed a biphasic adsorption pattern. The major differences in blood plasma of male and female donors were observed in the protein bands around 130 and 180 kDa. By integrating experimental and computational approaches, this study advances our understanding of how inhaled NPs may interact with blood proteins upon systemic exposure, with potential implications for human health risk assessment.
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