Papers

61,005 results
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Article Tier 2

The nexus of microplastics, food and antimicrobial resistance in the context of aquatic environment: Interdisciplinary linkages of pathways

This review examines how microplastics in aquatic environments serve as surfaces where bacteria can grow, share antibiotic resistance genes, and then enter the food chain through contaminated seafood. The combination of microplastic pollution and antimicrobial resistance creates a compounding threat, as resistant bacteria riding on plastic particles can survive water treatment and reach humans. The authors call for interdisciplinary research connecting environmental science and public health to address this growing risk.

2025 Journal of Contaminant Hydrology 7 citations
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

Interactions between microplastics and microbiota in a One Health perspective

This review examines how microplastics interact with microbial communities across human, animal, and environmental settings using a One Health framework. Microplastics disrupt the normal balance of microbiota in the gut, soil, and water, and serve as surfaces where harmful bacteria and antibiotic resistance genes accumulate and spread. The authors argue that understanding these microplastic-microbe interactions across all domains of life is essential for protecting both ecosystem and human health.

2025 One Health 8 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

How microplastics and nanoplastics shape antibiotic resistance?

This review examines how micro- and nanoplastics act as vectors for antibiotic resistance genes, facilitating their spread through environmental and biological systems by creating selective pressure and hosting microbial communities that exchange resistance determinants.

2022 Water Emerging Contaminants & Nanoplastics 5 citations
Article Tier 2

Antibiotic resistant bacteria colonising microplastics in the aquatic environment: An emerging challenge

Researchers reviewed how microplastics in aquatic environments act as surfaces where antibiotic-resistant bacteria can grow and swap resistance genes with each other, raising concern that contaminated seafood and water could transfer these hard-to-treat bacteria to humans.

2024 Discover Sustainability 15 citations
Article Tier 2

Insight into combined pollution of antibiotics and microplastics in aquatic and soil environment: Environmental behavior, interaction mechanism and associated impact of resistant genes

This review examines the combined pollution created when microplastics absorb antibiotics in water and soil environments. Researchers found that microplastics can concentrate antibiotics on their surfaces, and this combination promotes the spread of antibiotic-resistant genes in microbial communities. The study highlights that the interaction between these two emerging pollutants may pose greater environmental and health risks than either one alone.

2023 TrAC Trends in Analytical Chemistry 69 citations
Article Tier 2

The Role of the Environment (Water, Air, Soil) in the Emergence and Dissemination of Antimicrobial Resistance: A One Health Perspective

This review examines how water, soil, and air act as reservoirs for antibiotic-resistant bacteria, with microplastics highlighted as one of several agents that help spread drug-resistant genes across environments. The findings matter for human health because microplastics can carry antibiotic-resistant bacteria from wastewater and agricultural runoff into water supplies and food systems.

2025 Antibiotics 16 citations
Article Tier 2

The interplay between antimicrobial resistance, heavy metal pollution, and the role of microplastics

This review explores the three-way connection between microplastics, heavy metals, and antibiotic resistance in the environment. Microplastics serve as surfaces where bacteria form biofilms and exchange resistance genes, while heavy metals have been driving bacterial resistance for billions of years through similar genetic mechanisms. Together, these pollutants create hotspots where dangerous antibiotic-resistant bacteria can develop and spread.

2025 Frontiers in Microbiology 39 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastic-associated pathogens and antimicrobial resistance in environment

This review examines how microplastics in the environment act as surfaces for disease-causing bacteria and antibiotic-resistant microbes to colonize and spread. Researchers found that microplastics can carry pathogens and facilitate the transfer of antimicrobial resistance genes between bacteria in water systems. The findings raise concerns that microplastic pollution may be contributing to the growing global challenge of antibiotic resistance.

2021 Chemosphere 175 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
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

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
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

Determining the Contribution of Micro/Nanoplastics to Antimicrobial Resistance: Challenges and Perspectives

This review examines how microplastics in the environment serve as surfaces where antibiotic-resistant bacteria can grow and exchange resistance genes, potentially worsening the global antimicrobial resistance crisis. Researchers found that the unique surface properties of micro- and nanoplastics create favorable conditions for the spread of antibiotic resistance genes among microorganisms. The study highlights that microplastic pollution and antibiotic resistance are interconnected environmental health challenges that may need to be addressed together.

2023 Environmental Science & Technology 64 citations
Article Tier 2

The interplay between antimicrobial resistance genes and emerging contaminants in wastewater treatment plants: Key players in One Health

Researchers reviewed how wastewater treatment plants interact with antibiotic-resistant bacteria and emerging contaminants including microplastics, finding that microplastics and heavy metals help antibiotic resistance genes spread through microbial communities. This makes treatment plants hotspots for creating harder-to-treat bacterial strains, posing a broad public health risk that connects environmental pollution to human medicine.

2025 Annals of Microbiology
Article Tier 2

Microplastics and their role in the emergence of antibiotic resistance in bacteria as a threat for the environment

Researchers reviewed how microplastics act as breeding grounds for antibiotic-resistant bacteria by providing surfaces where bacteria can swap resistance genes with each other — a process called horizontal gene transfer. This dual threat of plastic pollution and antibiotic resistance is compounding into a significant global public health crisis.

2025 Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology 7 citations
Article Tier 2

Biofilm formation on microplastics and interactions with antibiotics, antibiotic resistance genes and pathogens in aquatic environment

This review explains how microplastics in waterways develop bacterial biofilms on their surfaces that can harbor antibiotic-resistant bacteria and help spread antibiotic resistance genes to new environments. This is concerning for human health because these resistant microbes could eventually reach people through drinking water or seafood consumption.

2024 Eco-Environment & Health 63 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
Systematic Review Tier 1

Food-Associated Stressors and Their Synergistic Roles in Bacterial Antibiotic Resistance across the Food Supply Chain

This review identifies microplastics as one of several food supply chain stressors that synergistically promote bacterial antibiotic resistance, alongside antibiotic residues, heavy metals, and pesticides. Microplastics can serve as carriers for resistant bacteria and resistance genes, creating a 'One Health' pathway from agriculture and environment through food processing to human exposure.

2025 Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 1 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastics in fresh- and wastewater are potential contributors to antibiotic resistance - A minireview

Researchers reviewed the link between microplastic pollution and the spread of antibiotic resistance in freshwater environments, finding that microplastic surfaces host unique bacterial communities enriched in antibiotic-resistant bacteria and the resistance genes they can share with other microbes. The close packing of bacteria in these plastic-surface biofilms may accelerate the spread of drug-resistant pathogens through drinking water sources, though the full health implications remain poorly understood.

2022 Journal of Hazardous Materials Advances 31 citations
Article Tier 2

Research progress on the origin, fate, impacts and harm of microplastics and antibiotic resistance genes in wastewater treatment plants

This review explores how microplastics and antibiotic resistance genes interact in wastewater treatment plants, where they can survive treatment and enter the environment together. The concern for human health is that these contaminants can travel through the food chain, potentially increasing illness from antibiotic-resistant infections.

2024 Scientific Reports 49 citations
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
Systematic Review Tier 1

Food-AssociatedStressors and Their Synergistic Rolesin Bacterial Antibiotic Resistance across the Food Supply Chain

This review identifies microplastics as one of several food supply chain stressors that synergistically promote bacterial antibiotic resistance, alongside antibiotic residues, heavy metals, and pesticides. Microplastics can serve as carriers for resistant bacteria and resistance genes, creating a 'One Health' pathway from agriculture and environment through food processing to human exposure.

2025 Figshare