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An Adverse Outcome Pathway for food nanomaterial-induced intestinal barrier disruption
Summary
Researchers developed an Adverse Outcome Pathway (AOP) linking food nanomaterial ingestion to intestinal barrier disruption, synthesizing existing evidence while identifying critical gaps in standardized testing methods. This framework is directly applicable to nanoplastics, providing a regulatory toxicology tool for assessing how ingested nano-sized plastic particles could damage gut barrier integrity.
The collection of existing scientific evidence supporting our AOP linking NM uptake to intestinal barrier impairments allowed us to highlight current evidence gaps and data inconsistencies. These inconsistencies could be associated with the variety of stressors, biological systems, and key event (KE)-related assays used in different studies. This underscores the need for further harmonized methodologies and the production of mechanistic evidence for the safety regulatory assessment of NMs in the food sector.