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UV-induced microplastics (MPs) aging leads to comprehensive toxicity
Summary
Researchers evaluated the toxicity of four common types of microplastics before and after UV aging, along with their chemical additives and interactions with antibiotics. They found that both the plastics and their released additives showed significant toxic potential, and that combining aged microplastics with antibiotics dramatically increased toxicity in some cases. The study highlights that UV weathering transforms microplastics into more complex pollutants whose combined effects with other contaminants are difficult to predict.
Herein, the toxicity of 4 MPs and additives released from MPs during UV-aging was quantitatively evaluated by the transcriptional effect level index (TELI) based on E. coli whole-cell microarray assay, and MPs-antibiotics complex pollutants. Results showed that MPs and these additives had high toxicity potential, the maximum TELI was 5.68/6.85 for polystyrene (PS)/bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP). There were many similar toxic pathways between MPs and additives, indicating that part of the toxicity risk of MPs was caused by the release of additives. MPs were compounded with antibiotics, the toxicity value changed significantly. The TELI values of amoxicillin (AMX) + polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and ciprofloxacin (CIP) + PVC were as high as 12.30 and 14.58 (P < 0.05). Three antibiotics all decreased the toxicity of PS and had little effect on polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (PE). The combined toxicity mechanism of MPs and antibiotics was very complicated, and the results could be divided into four types: MPs (PVC/PE + CIP), antibiotics (PVC + TC, PS + AMX/ tetracycline (TC)/CIP, PE + TC), both (PP + AMX/TC/CIP), or brand-new mechanisms (PVC + AMX).