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The trojan horse in agricultural water: How microbe-mediated interactions of nanoplastics and flame retardants drive multiscale toxicity and seed transmission in rye
Summary
Researchers investigated how nanoplastics and flame retardants interact when co-transported through agricultural irrigation water, using rye as a model crop. The study found that nanoplastics formed stable complexes with flame retardants via van der Waals forces, which accumulated in roots, translocated to seeds, caused severe oxidative damage, and reduced photosynthesis by nearly 65% through synergistic toxic effects.
Agricultural irrigation water serves as a critical vector for the co-transport of emerging contaminants like nanoplastics and organophosphate flame retardants, posing a poorly understood risk to crop safety and water quality. This study employed a combination of hydroponic exposure (simulating contaminated irrigation), long-term cultivation, multi-omics (transcriptomics and metabolomics), physiological assays, and computational simulations to elucidate the multiscale toxic mechanisms of aminated polystyrene nanoplastics (NPs-NH₂) and tris(1,3-dichloro-2-propyl) phosphate (TEP) in rye. We deciphered a clear toxic pathway: In the aqueous phase, van der Waals forces drove the formation of a stable NP-TEP complex with enhanced bioavailability. This complex accumulated in roots and was translocated to seeds, inducing synergistic oxidative burst (H₂O₂ increased >600%) and direct physical damage to cellular structures (e.g., starch granules and chloroplasts). Molecular docking confirmed NPs-NH₂ binding to photosystem I proteins, while TEP inhibited key metabolic enzymes (PAL, nsLTP2). Multi-omics revealed systemic reprogramming, where energy metabolism was disrupted and resources were reallocated to defense pathways (e.g., phenylpropanoid biosynthesis), at the cost of growth and nutrient storage. Consequently, co-exposure via irrigation water led to severe phenotypic injuries: synergistic inhibition of photosynthesis (net photosynthetic rate reduced by 64.9%), biomass, and seed yield (thousand-grain weight decreased), with both pollutants detected within seeds. This work defines a concrete pathway from molecular interaction in water to phenotypic damage, demonstrating that combined pollutant exposure via agricultural water poses a greater threat to crop productivity and food safety than individual contaminants, underscoring the urgent need to consider interaction mechanisms in water quality risk assessment.