We can't find the internet
Attempting to reconnect
Something went wrong!
Hang in there while we get back on track
Microplastic-mediated new mechanism of liver damage: From the perspective of the gut-liver axis
AI summary Read the abstract
This review describes how microplastics can damage the liver through the gut-liver axis: they first disrupt the gut's protective barrier and beneficial bacteria, allowing harmful substances to leak through the weakened intestinal wall into the bloodstream and travel to the liver. Once there, these substances cause inflammation, metabolic problems, and oxidative stress, offering a new explanation for how microplastic exposure could lead to liver disease.
Microplastics (MPs) are environmental contaminants that are present in all environments and can enter the human body, accumulate in various organs, and cause harm through the ingestion of food, inhalation, and dermal contact. The connection between bowel and liver disease and the interplay between gut, liver, and flora has been conceptualized as the "gut-liver axis". Microplastics can alter the structure of microbial communities in the gut and the liver can also be a target for microplastic invasion. Numerous studies have found that when MPs impair human health, they not only promote dysbiosis of the gut microbiota and disruption of the gut barrier but also cause liver damage. For this reason, the gut-liver axis provides a new perspective in understanding this toxic response. The cross-talk between MPs and the gut-liver axis has attracted the attention of the scientific community, but knowledge about whether MPs cause gut-liver interactions through the gut-liver axis is still very limited, and the effect of MPs on liver injury is not well understood. MPs can directly induce microbiota disorders and gut barrier dysfunction. As a result, harmful bacteria and metabolites in the gut enter the blood through the weak intestinal barrier (portal vein channel along the gut-liver axis) and reach the liver, causing liver damage (inflammatory damage, metabolic disorders, oxidative stress, etc.). This review provides an integrated perspective of the gut-liver axis to help conceptualize the mechanisms by which MP exposure induces gut microbiota dysbiosis and hepatic injury and highlights the connection between MPs and the gut-liver axis. Therefore, from the perspective of the gut-liver axis, targeting intestinal flora is an important way to eliminate microplastic liver damage.
More Papers Like This
Impact of microplastics and nanoplastics on liver health: Current understanding and future research directions
AI summary Read the abstract
This review summarizes what scientists know about how micro- and nanoplastics affect the liver, which is one of the first organs exposed because it processes everything absorbed from the gut. The particles trigger oxidative stress, disrupt energy metabolism, cause cell death, and promote inflammation, and may contribute to conditions like fatty liver disease and liver fibrosis. The paper also highlights how plastics can disturb the gut microbiome, which communicates with the liver through the gut-liver axis and may amplify liver damage.
Gut dysbiosis exacerbates inflammatory liver injury induced by environmentally relevant concentrations of nanoplastics via the gut-liver axis
AI summary Read the abstract
This mouse study found that swallowing nanoplastics at levels found in the environment disrupted gut bacteria and damaged the intestinal barrier, allowing toxins to leak into the bloodstream and cause liver inflammation. When researchers transplanted gut bacteria from nanoplastic-exposed mice into healthy mice, those mice also developed liver damage. This demonstrates that nanoplastics may harm the liver indirectly by first disrupting the gut, a finding relevant to understanding how everyday plastic exposure could affect human health.
Micro- and Nanoplastics as Disruptors of Digestive and Hepatopancreatic Homeostasis: Insights into the Plastic-Gut-Liver Axis
AI summary Read the abstract
Researchers reviewed how micro- and nanoplastics disrupt the gut-liver axis by compromising intestinal barrier integrity, promoting microbiota dysbiosis, and enabling microbial translocation via portal circulation that triggers hepatic inflammation, metabolic reprogramming, and potential carcinogenic processes, while also noting emerging evidence of pancreatic and multi-organ involvement.
Emerging threat of environmental microplastics: A comprehensive analysis of hepatic metabolic dysregulation and hepatocellular damage (Review)
AI summary Read the abstract
This review summarizes existing research on how microplastics damage the liver, which is a key organ for filtering toxins from the body. Studies show that microplastics can cause liver tissue damage, trigger cell death, and disrupt fat metabolism, with smaller particles and longer exposure causing worse effects. The findings highlight the liver as a particularly vulnerable organ because it accumulates microplastics that enter the body through food and water.
Polyethylene microplastics induced gut microbiota dysbiosis leading to liver injury via the TLR2/NF-κB/NLRP3 pathway in mice
AI summary Read the abstract
Mice exposed to polyethylene microplastics developed liver damage that was traced back to disrupted gut bacteria -- the microplastics increased harmful bacteria while decreasing beneficial ones, triggering inflammation through the TLR2/NF-kB/NLRP3 immune pathway. This study provides new evidence that microplastics may harm the liver not just through direct contact, but indirectly by first throwing off the balance of gut bacteria.
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.