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Application of intestinal microbiota in marine fish for assessing the toxicity of typical pollutants: a literature review

PeerJ 2025 1 citation ? Citation count from OpenAlex, updated daily. May differ slightly from the publisher's own count. Score: 53 ? 0–100 AI score estimating relevance to the microplastics field. Papers below 30 are filtered from public browse.
Yunzhi Feng, Hu Xu, Guohua Xu, Dong Sun

Summary

This review examines how the gut microbiota of marine fish can serve as biomarkers for assessing the toxic effects of ocean pollutants, including microplastics, heavy metals, antibiotics, and petroleum hydrocarbons. The study highlights that changes in key microbial communities in fish intestines reflect environmental contamination levels and could provide valuable indicators for monitoring marine ecosystem health.

Study Type Environmental

The widespread diffusion and dilution of pollutants in the ocean lead to prolonged exposure of marine organisms to low-concentration contaminated environments, raising growing concerns about the potential risks associated with chronic low-level pollution. The gut microbiota of fish plays a pivotal role in essential physiological processes, which are critical for host health. Therefore, the key microbes in the gut could serve as valuable biomarkers for assessing the toxic effects of pollutants. This article systematically reviews the structure and functions of marine fish gut microbiota, outlines the primary methodologies for assessing gut microbiota, and highlights the impacts of typical pollutants (including petroleum hydrocarbons, antibiotics, heavy metals, and microplastic) on the composition, functionality, and metabolic activities of marine fish gut microbiota. In the future, integrating multi-technology approaches to investigate the toxic mechanisms of pollutants on gut microbiota and their biodegradation pathways will represent a pivotal direction in marine ecotoxicology research.

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