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Bidirectional interference between nanoplastics and arsenic in arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis: Reciprocal modulation of uptake, transformation and translocation
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Researchers used a dual-compartment culture system to show that nanoplastics and arsenic interfere with each other inside arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, where nanoplastics reduce arsenic uptake by fungal hyphae while promoting its conversion to less toxic organic forms, and the fungi in turn internalize and translocate nanoplastics — revealing potential for fungal-based remediation of co-contaminated soils.
Nanoplastics, which persist in the environment with high specific surface areas, interact with the well-documented pollutant arsenic, thereby exacerbating its phytotoxicity. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, forming symbiotic relationships with most plants and enhancing their arsenic tolerance, possess hyphae capable of capturing nanoplastics. However, no studies have investigated either how arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi absorb and transfer arsenic during nanoplastics co-exposure, or whether nanoplastics are internalized by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi hyphae and translocated to mycorrhizal tissues under arsenic stress. In this study, a two-compartment in vitro monoxenic cultivation system was used to investigate the synergistic translocation and transformation of arsenic-nanoplastic co-contaminants at the plant-microbe interface. The results indicated that nanoplastics hindered the arsenic absorption by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi hyphae and promoted the transformation of inorganic arsenic to organic arsenic via upregulating the relative expression of the RiMT-11 gene in the hyphae. Scanning electron microscopy and confocal laser scanning microscopy imaging confirmed nanoplastics internalization by hyphae and subsequent translocation to mycorrhizae under arsenic exposure. This study deciphers nanoplastic-arsenic-arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi interaction mechanisms and validates arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi's potential role in the bioremediation of arsenic-nanoplastic co-contaminated soils.
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Researchers studied the combined and individual effects of arsenic and micro- or nanoplastics on soil bacterial, fungal, and protistan communities. The study found that combined pollution distinctly altered the composition of these microbial communities, with protistan communities being particularly sensitive, indicating that the co-occurrence of plastics and heavy metals in soil may have compounding ecological effects.
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