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Diet preference of zebrafish (Danio rerio) for bio-based polylactic acid microplastics and induced intestinal damage and microbiota dysbiosis
Summary
Researchers found that zebrafish actively preferred to eat bio-based polylactic acid microplastics over conventional petroleum-based polyethylene terephthalate microplastics, accumulating roughly 170 times more of the bio-based particles in their intestines. Both types of microplastics caused intestinal damage and disrupted the gut microbiome, but the higher ingestion rate of bio-based plastics led to greater harm. The study raises important questions about whether biodegradable plastics may actually pose equal or greater risks to aquatic life due to their attractiveness as a food source.
The ingestion of petroleum-based microplastics (MPs) by aquatic animals and their toxicological effects are of wide concern. However, the ecological risks of bio-based MPs to aquatic animals remain largely unknown. In the present study, zebrafish (Danio rerio) were exposed to MPs of polylactic acid (PLA), the most widely used bio-based plastic, and polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a high-production volume petroleum-based plastic. PLA MPs were more actively ingested by fish than PET MPs. The abundance of PLA MPs in fish intestines was approximately 170 times greater than that of PET MPs after one day of exposure. The ingestion of PLA MPs caused gastrointestinal damage in zebrafish. In addition, the ingestion of PLA MPs induced specific changes in the diversity of intestinal microbiota and promoted species closely linked with energy metabolism, cellular processes, and fish diseases. This might have been related to the depolymerization of PLA in the digestive tract, which decreased the intestinal pH and changed the carbon source structure. Overall, bio-based MPs may have different ecological effects on aquatic animals than traditional petroleum-based MPs.