Multi-scale insights into the mechanisms by which nanoplastics amplify cadmium genotoxicity: Stress response, molecular regulatory pathways and molecular docking

The effects of nanoplastics on toxicity of metals and metal nanoparticles: molecular mechanisms and health effects

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Researchers reviewed how co-exposure to nanoplastics and heavy metals produces synergistic toxicity across multiple species and cell models, finding that nanoplastics enhance metal bioavailability and amplify oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, apoptosis, and gut dysbiosis more severely than equivalent microplastic co-exposures.

Nanoplastics exacerbate cadmium toxicity in Mytilus coruscus through bioenergetic exhaustion and tissue disintegration

Co-exposure to Cadmium and Polystyrene Nanoplastics Intensifies Renal Damage in Mice via the Activation of the PANoptosis Pathway

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Researchers exposed mice to cadmium and polystyrene nanoplastics individually and together, finding that co-exposure synergistically worsened kidney damage by activating PANoptosis — a coordinated cell death cascade integrating pyroptosis, apoptosis, and necroptosis — with the scaffold protein ASC markedly upregulated as a central driver.

Molecular mechanisms of microplastics toxicity

Microplastics and nanoplastics in human health: a comprehensive review of exposure pathways, cellular mechanisms, and toxicological implications

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Researchers reviewed human exposure pathways to microplastics and nanoplastics through seafood, salt, drinking water, inhalation, and skin contact, examining how these particles cross biological barriers to reach organs and trigger oxidative stress, inflammation, and endocrine disruption with poorly understood long-term consequences.