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Polystyrene Microplastics Stimulate the Wnt Pathway to Cause Colorectal Cancer
Summary
Researchers investigated the role of polystyrene microplastics in colorectal cancer development and found that PS-MPs activate the Wnt signaling pathway, promoting tumor cell proliferation and migration. The findings provide mechanistic evidence linking dietary microplastic exposure to colorectal cancer progression.
Polystyrene is one of the most commonly used plastics in daily life. After being discarded, it can be degraded into polystyrene microplastics under the action of the environment and enter the human body with the food chain. Polystyrene microplastics as a growing plastic threat, we focused on its role in the occurrence of colorectal cancer. Mechanistically, we focused on the interaction between polystyrene and the Wnt pathway, and determined whether the Wnt pathway was activated by detecting the expression of APC gene, MYC protein and -catenin. It is hoped that through our experiments, the public can realize the harm of polystyrene microplastics to public health.
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