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Co-exposure to polyethylene fiber and Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium alters microbiome and metabolome of in vitro chicken cecal mesocosms
Summary
Researchers studied how polyethylene microplastic fibers interact with Salmonella bacteria in the gut environment of chickens using an in vitro model. They found that co-exposure altered the microbial community composition and metabolic activity in ways that could favor pathogen survival. The findings raise concerns that microplastic contamination in poultry feed could potentially increase the risk of Salmonella infections in flocks and, ultimately, in the human food supply.
Researching the exposome, a summation of exposure to one's lifespan, will aid in determining the environmental factors that contribute to disease states. There is an emerging concern that microplastic-pathogen interactions in the gastrointestinal tract of broiler chickens may lead to an increase in Salmonella infection across flocks and eventually increased incidence of human salmonellosis cases. In this research article, we elucidated the effects of acute co-exposure to polyethylene microplastics and Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium on the ceca microbial community in vitro. Salmonella presence caused strong shifts in the cecal metabolome but not the microbiome. The inverse was true for polyethylene fiber. Polyethylene powder had almost no effect. The co-exposure had worse effects than either alone. This demonstrates that exposure effects to the gut microbial community are contaminant-specific. When combined, the interactions between exposures exacerbate changes to the gut environment, necessitating future experiments studying low-dose chronic exposure effects with in vivo model systems.
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