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Effect of polystyrene nanoplastics and their degraded forms on stem cell fate
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Researchers studied how polystyrene nanoplastics and their degraded forms affect human bone marrow-derived stem cells. They found that both intact and degraded nanoplastics showed reactive oxygen species scavenging activity, enhanced mitochondrial fusion, and promoted cell proliferation and fat cell differentiation. However, the degraded nanoplastics showed higher long-term cytotoxicity, suggesting that as nanoplastics break down in the environment, their biological effects on human cells may change.
Several studies have examined the effects of micro- and nanoplastics on microbes, cells, and the environment. However, only a few studies have examined their effects-especially, those of their reduced cohesiveness-on cell viability and physiology. We synthesized surfactant-free amine-functionalized polystyrene (PS) nanoparticles (NPs) and PS-NPs with decreased crosslinking density (DPS-NPs) without changing other factors, such as size, shape, and zeta potential and examined their effects on cell viability and physiology. PS- and DPS-NPs exhibited reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging activity by upregulating GPX3 expression and downregulating HSP70 (ROS-related gene) and XBP1 (endoplasmic reticulum stress-related gene) expression in human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hBM-MSCs). Additionally, they led to upregulation of MFN2 (mitochondrial fusion related gene) expression and downregulation of FIS1 (mitochondrial fission related gene) expression, indicating enhanced mitochondrial fusion in hBM-MSCs. Cell-cycle analysis revealed that PS- and DPS-NPs increased the proportion of cells in the S phase, indicating that they promoted cell proliferation and, specifically, the adipogenic differentiation of hBM-MSCs. However, the cytotoxicity of DPS-NPs against hBM-MSCs was higher than that of PS-NPs after long-term treatment under adipogenic conditions.
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