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Combined effect of microplastic, salinomycin and heating on Unio tumidus
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Researchers studied how microplastics interact with a common veterinary antibiotic and elevated water temperatures to affect freshwater mussels. While microplastics and the antibiotic alone caused mild stress, the combination under warmer conditions dampened the mussels' protective enzyme responses rather than amplifying them. This finding highlights that the effects of microplastics cannot be studied in isolation, as real-world conditions involve multiple stressors that interact in complex and sometimes unexpected ways.
Microplastic (MP) and heating (T) suspected to modulate biological effects of aquatic contaminants. Salinomycin (Sal) is veterinary antibiotic and anticancer agent. The goal of this study was to examine the multistress effect of MP, Sal and T on the bioindicator bivalve mollusc. The Unio tumidus were treated with MP (1 mg L-1), Sal (0.6 µg L-1), their combination under 18° C (Mix) and 25° C (MixT) for 14 days. The digestive glands were analyzed. MP and Sal did not cause changes of Mn- and Cu,Zn-SOD, lipid peroxidation and Cyp-450-depended EROD levels, whereas catalase, GST and protein carbonyls (Sal-group) increased compared to control. In the Mix-group, enzymes, particularly EROD and GST (by 34% and 115% respectively) were up-regulated. However, in the MixT-group, they were corresponding to control or lesser (EROD, catalase). Our findings emphasize the need to take into account multistress interactions in the MP environmental risk assessment.
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This study exposed freshwater mussels to microplastics and the antibiotic salinomycin, both alone and combined, and found that the mixture caused more severe cellular damage including disrupted antioxidant defenses and signs of programmed cell death. When heat stress was added, the harmful effects became even more unpredictable. The research demonstrates how microplastics can interact with other pollutants and environmental stressors in ways that are difficult to predict.
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This ecotoxicology study exposed freshwater mussels (Unio tumidus) to a combination of microplastics, the antibiotic salinomycin, and elevated temperature to test how multiple stressors interact. Combined exposure caused greater oxidative stress, disrupted zinc-copper balance, reduced lysosomal integrity, and altered apoptosis-related enzyme activity compared to individual stressors. The results demonstrate that real-world conditions — where organisms face plastics alongside other pollutants and warming — can produce compounded harm greater than any single factor alone.
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Researchers exposed freshwater mussels to a combination of common psychoactive substances (caffeine and chlorpromazine) and microplastics to see how the mixture affected their biology. Individually, each pollutant caused oxidative damage and disrupted cellular processes, but the combined mixture surprisingly reduced some of these harmful effects. The study suggests that pollutant interactions in real-world conditions can produce unexpected outcomes that differ from single-pollutant studies.
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