Papers

20 results
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Article Tier 2

Microplastics and antibiotic resistance genes as rising threats: Their interaction represents an urgent environmental concern

This review examines how microplastics interact with antibiotics and antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the environment, creating a combined pollution threat. Microplastics can absorb antibiotics onto their surface and serve as platforms where bacteria exchange resistance genes. This interaction could accelerate the spread of antibiotic resistance, making infections harder to treat and posing a growing public health risk.

2025 Current Research in Microbial Sciences 6 citations
Article Tier 2

Ecotoxicological Effects of Microplastics Combined With Antibiotics in the Aquatic Environment: Recent Developments and Prospects

This review examines how microplastics and antibiotics interact in water environments, finding that microplastics can absorb antibiotics onto their surfaces and carry them over long distances. When aquatic organisms encounter these antibiotic-laden microplastics, the combined toxicity can be worse than either pollutant alone. Microplastics also promote the spread of antibiotic resistance genes, which is a growing public health concern.

2024 Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 20 citations
Systematic Review Tier 1

Co-occurence of antibiotics and micro(nano)plastics: a systematic review between 2016-2021

This systematic review examines how microplastics and antibiotics interact in the environment. It finds that microplastics can absorb and carry antibiotics, potentially spreading antibiotic resistance and creating combined health risks that are greater than either pollutant alone.

2022 Journal of Environmental Science and Health Part A 22 citations
Article Tier 2

Interaction of Microplastics with Antibiotics in Aquatic Environment: Distribution, Adsorption, and Toxicity

This review examines how microplastics and antibiotics interact in waterways, finding that microplastics can absorb antibiotics from the water and change their availability and toxicity to aquatic organisms. Critically, microplastics also provide surfaces where antibiotic resistance genes can accumulate and spread among bacteria. This is concerning for human health because it means microplastics in water could be accelerating the spread of antibiotic-resistant infections.

2021 Environmental Science & Technology 415 citations
Systematic Review Tier 1

A critical review of the adsorption-desorption characteristics of antibiotics on microplastics and their combined toxic effects

This systematic review examines how microplastics absorb and release antibiotics in the environment, and the combined toxic effects of this interaction. When microplastics carrying antibiotics are ingested by living organisms, they may promote antibiotic resistance and cause greater harm than either pollutant alone, which is a growing concern for human health.

2024 Environmental Technology & Innovation 58 citations
Review Tier 2

Decoding the interactions between antibiotics and microplastics-chemistry, environmental impacts, and mitigation approaches- A state-of-the-art review

This review examines how antibiotics and microplastics interact in the environment, forming complexes that can persist longer and travel farther than either pollutant alone. Researchers found that these complexes can serve as reservoirs for antimicrobial resistance and disrupt microbial communities. The study highlights an underappreciated environmental risk where two common pollutants combine to create compounding ecological and public health challenges.

2025 Environmental Research 2 citations
Article Tier 2

Antibiotic sorption onto MPs in terrestrial environment: a critical review of the transport, bioaccumulation, ecotoxicological effects and prospects

This review examines how microplastics in soil absorb and transport antibiotics, creating complex pollutants that can spread antibiotic resistance genes through the environment. When antibiotic-carrying microplastics are taken up by plants or soil organisms, the resistance genes can eventually reach humans through the food chain. The authors highlight the need for better strategies to reduce microplastic contamination in soil to help slow the growing crisis of antibiotic resistance.

2024 Drug and Chemical Toxicology 14 citations
Article Tier 2

A review on the effect of micro- and nano-plastics pollution on the emergence of antimicrobial resistance

This review highlights how microplastics serve as breeding grounds for antimicrobial resistance genes, examining the overlooked interaction between plastic pollution and antibiotic resistance that poses combined threats to environmental and human health.

2022 Chemosphere 34 citations
Article Tier 2

Ecotoxicological effects of antibiotic adsorption behavior of microplastics and its management measures

This review summarizes research on how microplastics adsorb antibiotics from the environment, creating combined pollutant complexes with potentially greater ecological harm. Researchers found that factors like plastic type, aging, and environmental conditions strongly influence how much antibiotic a microplastic particle can carry. The study highlights that these microplastic-antibiotic combinations may contribute to the spread of antibiotic resistance in the environment.

2023 Environmental Science and Pollution Research 21 citations
Article Tier 2

Interaction between antibiotics and microplastics: Recent advances and perspective

This review examines how microplastics in water can absorb antibiotic pollutants onto their surface, especially as the plastics age and develop bacterial biofilms. This interaction is concerning for human health because microplastics carrying antibiotics could promote antibiotic-resistant bacteria in waterways, making infections harder to treat.

2023 The Science of The Total Environment 168 citations
Article Tier 2

The combined effect of microplastics and tetracycline on soil microbial communities and ARGs

Researchers studied how simultaneous exposure to microplastics and tetracycline affects soil microbial communities, finding that the combination disrupted microbial diversity, altered functional gene expression, and promoted horizontal transfer of antibiotic resistance genes beyond the effects of either pollutant alone.

2025 Environmental Pollution 4 citations
Article Tier 2

Environmental drivers of antibiotic resistance: Synergistic effects of climate change, co-pollutants, and microplastics

This review examines how climate change, chemical pollutants, and microplastics work together to accelerate the spread of antibiotic resistance, a growing global health crisis. Microplastics provide surfaces where bacteria form communities that exchange resistance genes, and as these plastics age in the environment, they become even better at absorbing other pollutants, creating hotspots that amplify drug resistance.

2025 Journal of Hazardous Materials Advances 15 citations
Article Tier 2

Interaction between microplastic biofilm formation and antibiotics: Effect of microplastic biofilm and its driving mechanisms on antibiotic resistance gene

This review explores how microplastics in water environments develop biofilms that interact with antibiotics in concerning ways. Researchers found that biofilm-coated microplastics can enhance the adsorption of antibiotics and serve as hotspots for antibiotic resistance genes. The study highlights the risk that microplastic biofilms could accelerate the spread of antibiotic resistance through aquatic ecosystems.

2023 Journal of Hazardous Materials 117 citations
Article Tier 2

Impact of Abiotic Stressors on Soil Microbial Communities: A Focus on Antibiotics and Their Interactions with Emerging Pollutants

This review examines how environmental stressors, especially antibiotics, affect the microbial communities that keep soil healthy and fertile. It also covers how antibiotics interact with other emerging pollutants like microplastics and heavy metals in soil. When microplastics carry antibiotics into soil, the combination can promote the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which is a growing concern for human health.

2024 Soil Systems 16 citations
Article Tier 2

Synergistic Pollution: Interactions Among Polyethylene, Surfactants, and Antibiotics in an Aquatic Environment

Researchers investigated synergistic pollution effects among polyethylene microplastics, surfactants, and antibiotics in aquatic systems, finding that co-presence enhanced the environmental persistence and bioavailability of antibiotics beyond what microplastics or surfactants caused individually.

2025
Article Tier 2

Combined pollution of tetracyclines and microplastics in the aquatic environment: Insights into the occurrence, interaction mechanisms and effects

This review examines how microplastics and tetracycline antibiotics interact in water environments, since microplastics can absorb and carry antibiotics on their surfaces. Factors like pH, heavy metals, and organic matter in water influence how tightly antibiotics bind to microplastics, and the combined pollution is more harmful to aquatic life than either pollutant alone. This is relevant to human health because these microplastic-antibiotic combinations can enter drinking water supplies and promote antibiotic resistance.

2024 Environmental Research 19 citations
Article Tier 2

Unraveling the nexus: Microplastics, antibiotics, and ARGs interactions, threats and control in aquaculture – A review

This review examines how microplastics, antibiotics, and antibiotic resistance genes interact in aquaculture environments, where all three contaminants frequently co-occur. Researchers found that microplastics can absorb antibiotics and serve as surfaces where resistant bacteria thrive, potentially amplifying the spread of antibiotic resistance. The study emphasizes the need for better management strategies to control these combined pollutants in fish farming operations.

2024 Journal of Hazardous Materials 35 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastics and Antibiotics in Aquatic Environments: A Review of Their Interactions and Ecotoxicological Implications

This review examines how microplastics and antibiotics interact when they meet in water, and what that means for ecosystems and health. Antibiotics can attach to microplastic surfaces through chemical bonds, and the microplastics can then carry these drugs through the environment, potentially spreading antibiotic-resistant bacteria. While the combined threat to fish and other aquatic life needs more study, the findings raise concerns about how microplastics help move antibiotic resistance through water systems.

2024 Tropical Aquatic and Soil Pollution 14 citations
Article Tier 2

[Research Progress on Adsorption, Migration, and Compound Toxicity of Microplastics and Antibiotics in Soil].

This review examined how microplastics adsorb antibiotics in soil, drive their co-migration, and produce combined toxic effects on soil fauna, plants, and microorganisms. Hydrophobic partitioning, electrostatic interactions, and hydrogen bonding are the primary adsorption mechanisms, and co-exposure often amplifies toxicity to soil ecosystems.

2025 PubMed
Article Tier 2

The Microplastic-Antibiotic Resistance Connection

This review examined the link between microplastic pollution and antibiotic resistance, finding that microplastic surfaces in the environment selectively enrich antibiotic-resistant bacteria and resistance genes, creating hotspots that may amplify the spread of resistance far beyond clinical settings.

2021 Environmental contamination remediation and management 24 citations