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Genotoxicity of Particles From Grinded Plastic Items in Caco-2 and HepG2 Cells
Summary
Researchers ground real-life plastic food containers into nano-sized particles and tested their effects on human intestinal and liver cell lines. The study found that nanoplastics from transparent PET containers produced a modest increase in DNA strand breaks, though no significant cytotoxicity or oxidative stress was observed, suggesting potential genotoxic effects warrant further investigation.
Large plastic litters degrade in the environment to micro- and nanoplastics, which may then enter the food chain and lead to human exposure by ingestion. The present study explored ways to obtain nanoplastic particles from real-life food containers. The first set of experiments gave rise to polypropylene nanoplastic suspensions with a hydrodynamic particle size range between 100 and 600 nm, whereas the same grinding process of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) produced suspensions of particles with a primary size between 100 and 300 nm. The exposure did not cause cytotoxicity measured by the lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and water soluble tetrazolium 1 (WST-1) assays in Caco-2 and HepG2 cells. Nanoplastics of transparent PET food containers produced a modest concentration-dependent increase in DNA strand breaks, measured by the alkaline comet assay [net induction of 0.28 lesions/106 bp at the highest concentration (95% CI: 0.04; 0.51 lesions/106 base pair)]. The exposure to nanoplastics from transparent polypropylene food containers was also positively associated with DNA strand breaks [i.e., net induction of 0.10 lesions/106 base pair (95% CI: -0.04; 0.23 lesions/106 base pair)] at the highest concentration. Nanoplastics from grinding of black colored PET food containers demonstrated no effect on HepG2 and Caco-2 cells in terms of cytotoxicity, reactive oxygen species production or changes in cell cycle distribution. The net induction of DNA strand breaks was 0.43 lesions/106 bp (95% CI: 0.09; 0.78 lesions/106 bp) at the highest concentration of nanoplastics from black PET food containers. Collectively, the results indicate that exposure to nanoplastics from real-life consumer products can cause genotoxicity in cell cultures.