We can't find the internet
Attempting to reconnect
Something went wrong!
Hang in there while we get back on track
Analytical review of nanoplastic bioaccumulation data and a unified toxicokinetic model: from teleosts to human brain
AI summary Read the abstract
Researchers developed a unified mathematical model to describe how nanoplastics accumulate in organs across species, from fish to humans. By analyzing existing uptake and depuration data, they found that nanoplastic accumulation dynamics follow a universal pattern governed by a single parameter related to the body's excretion capacity. The model suggests that reported concentrations of nanoplastics in human organs, particularly the brain, are consistent with predicted accumulation trajectories from environmental exposure.
Nanoplastics (NPs) are increasingly detected in human blood and organs at concentrations reaching hundreds to thousands of parts per million, yet no quantitative framework has linked short-term experimental uptake kinetics to longterm, organ-specific accumulation. Here we analytically review the most reliable uptake and depuration datasets available in teleost fish using a sequential two-compartment toxicokinetic model that distinguishes systemic circulation from tissue-level retention. While anomalous, non-Markovian transport is expected at microscopic scales, we show —through an explicit theoretic analysis on minimal information— that such formulations are not identifiable with existing data. Allowing unresolved early-time dynamics to be absorbed into effective, non-zero initial conditions yields an emergent Markovian description that is maximally informative and consistent across species, organs, particle sizes, and exposure levels. When expressed in normalized variables, uptake dynamics collapse onto a universal trajectory governed by a single dimensionless parameter, the systemic excretion capacity, which is generically small under experimental conditions. The resulting scale-free framework reveals systematic power-law dependencies of enrichment and retention times on ambient concentration, particle size, and body mass. Exploiting this structure, we examine the consistency of extrapolations to humans and show that reported organ burdens —particularly in the brain— are quantitatively compatible with inefficient systemic clearance and strong lipid-driven partitioning. At steady state, human tissue concentrations follow a robust approximate cubic scaling with lipid fraction, identifying lipid content as the dominant and mechanistically interpretable determinant of chronic nanoplastic accumulation.
More Papers Like This
A critical review of nanoplastic bioaccumulation data and a unified toxicokinetic model: from teleosts to human brain
AI summary Read the abstract
Researchers developed a toxicokinetic model using teleost fish uptake and depuration data to project how nanoplastics accumulate in human organs over a lifetime of chronic exposure. The model predicted that brain concentrations could reach ecologically concerning levels given current exposure estimates, and identified the gut-to-blood transfer rate as the key parameter governing long-term tissue accumulation.
Analytical review of nanoplastic bioaccumulation data and a unified toxicokinetic model: from teleosts to human brain
AI summary Read the abstract
Researchers compiled nanoplastic bioaccumulation data from teleost fish studies and developed a unified two-compartment toxicokinetic model to project long-term accumulation in human organs, including the brain. Model projections suggested that chronic low-level nanoplastic exposure could lead to tissue concentrations in the range of parts per million in the human brain over decades.
Human bioaccumulation of micro- and nanoplastics is primarily determined by the organs' vascular volume
AI summary Read the abstract
This modeling study examined how micro- and nanoplastic bioaccumulation in human organs relates to vascular blood volume, using recently published data showing elevated concentrations in the brain. The authors found that organ-level plastic accumulation is primarily determined by blood supply rather than organ mass or metabolic activity, explaining why highly vascularized organs accumulate disproportionately more particles.
Deciphering size-dependent inter-organ translocation of nanoplastics in fish using metal-labeled proxies and physiologically based toxicokinetic modeling
AI summary Read the abstract
Researchers used metal-tagged nanoplastics to track how particles of two different sizes (50 nm and 200 nm) traveled through organs in zebrafish, finding that smaller particles spread more widely and recirculated longer, while gills were the primary entry route in water and the intestine was the main exit — providing the first detailed mathematical model of how nanoplastics move through a fish's body.
Research digests by email
When a large batch of papers lands in the Atlas, we read through it and send a short write-up of what stood out.