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Effect of Polystyrene Nanoplastics on Ovarian Granulosa Cells

International Journal of Biology and Life Sciences 2025 Score: 48 ? 0–100 AI score estimating relevance to the microplastics field. Papers below 30 are filtered from public browse.
Zhenghao Wang, C.-E. Huang, Yongmei Chen

Summary

Researchers exposed human granulosa-like tumor cells to polystyrene nanoplastics at increasing concentrations and measured cell viability, membrane damage, and apoptosis. Nanoplastic exposure reduced cell viability in a dose-dependent manner with an IC50 indicating significant cytotoxicity, suggesting potential harm to female ovarian granulosa cells from nanoplastic exposure.

Polymers
Body Systems

Existing studies have shown that microplastics can cause male reproductive damage, but the effect of nanoplastics on female reproductive ability is rarely studied. The effect of PS-NPs (polystyrene nanoplastics) on the morphology of human granulosa-like tumor cells (KGN) was observed and photographed by optical microscope. CCK8 and LDH kits were used to detect the viability and damage of KGN cells exposed to 0, 25, 50, 75, 100, 125 and 150 μg/mL of PS-NPs, and the IC50 value of half inhibition of KGN cells by PS-NPs is 130.4 μg/mL. The ROS accumulation in KGN cells after exposure to 200 μg/mL of PS-NPs is significantly increase. The results showed that with the increase of the concentration of 50 nm PS-NPs, the morphology of KGN cells was significantly changed, the cell viability was significantly decreased, and the cell damage rate was significantly increased. These results provide evidence for the toxicity of PS-NPs in female reproduction.

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