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Spatiotemporal quantification of nanoplastic-induced oxidative stress in 3D cortical organoids by flexible electrodes
Summary
Scientists used a new flexible sensor to measure oxidative stress (cell damage linked to disease) in mini lab-grown brain tissue exposed to nanoplastics—those tiny plastic particles found throughout our environment. They found that the longer brain tissue was exposed to these plastics, the more damage built up, but the effects stayed concentrated near the surface (about the width of two human hairs deep) rather than spreading throughout the tissue. This research matters because it's one of the first tools to actually measure how deep nanoplastics penetrate into brain tissue and how much cellular stress they cause, giving scientists a better
Abstract Environmental pollutant nanoplastics (NPs) cross the blood–brain barrier and induce central nervous system toxicity through multiple pathways, with oxidative stress as the core neurotoxicity initiator. However, the brain penetration depth of NPs and associated oxidative stress distribution have not yet been investigated. Herein, we developed a flexible electrochemical sensor based on platinum nanoparticle-modified carbon nanotube fiber (Pt/CNF) to minimize insertion damage. The sensor exhibits excellent mechanical compliance and high sensitivity for hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) detection. Using this sensor for real-time in situ H2O2 monitoring in human cortical organoids (COs), we systematically investigated the oxidative stress levels at depths of 100 and 300 µm in COs exposed to polystyrene nanoplastics (PS-NPs) for different durations within 6 days. Our results demonstrate that oxidative stress at the same depth increased with longer exposure time, and showed distinct spatial locality, concentrating primarily in the ~ 100 µm-deep penetration region. This study quantifies the spatiotemporal neurotoxicity of nanoplastics in human brain models and provides a robust technical framework for environmental health risk assessment in other tissues.