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Polystyrene nanoplastic induces oxidative stress, immune defense, and glycometabolism change in Daphnia pulex: Application of transcriptome profiling in risk assessment of nanoplastics
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Researchers used transcriptome sequencing to examine how polystyrene nanoplastics affect gene expression in the water flea Daphnia pulex. After 96 hours of exposure, they identified 208 genes with altered expression levels, linked to oxidative stress, immune defense, and sugar metabolism pathways. The study provides molecular-level evidence that nanoplastic pollution can trigger multiple stress responses in freshwater organisms.
Aquatic environments are generally contaminated with nanoplastic material. As a result, molecular mechanisms for sensitive species like Daphnia are needed, given that mechanistic nanoplastic toxicity is largely unknown. Here, global transcriptome sequencing (RNA-Seq) was performed on D. pulex neonates to quantitatively measure the expression level of transcripts. A total of 208 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were detected in response to nanoplastic exposure for 96 h, with 107 being up-regulated and 101 down-regulated. The gene functions and pathways for oxidative stress, immune defense, and glycometabolism were identified. In this study, D. pulex neonates provide some molecular insights into nanoplastic toxicity. However, more studies on DEGs are needed to better understand the underlying mechanisms that result as a response to nanoplastic toxicity in aquatic organisms.
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