Papers

61,005 results
|
Article Tier 2

Nanoplastic ShapeEffects on Lipid Bilayer Permeabilization

Researchers investigated how nanoplastic shape affects lipid bilayer permeabilisation, demonstrating that morphologically diverse environmental nanoplastics interact with cell membranes in ways that differ substantially from the uniform polystyrene nanospheres typically used in laboratory studies.

2025 Figshare
Article Tier 2

Nanoplastic ShapeEffects on Lipid Bilayer Permeabilization

Researchers examined how nanoplastic particle shape and lipid composition together determine the degree of membrane disruption, finding that irregular environmentally weathered nanoplastic shapes — unlike pristine spherical nanoparticles — produce distinct permeabilisation effects on lipid bilayers.

2025 Figshare
Article Tier 2

Effects of Shape on Interaction Dynamics of Tetrahedral Nanoplastics and the Cell Membrane

Researchers used computer simulations to model how tetrahedral-shaped nanoplastics, which resemble environmentally released plastic fragments, interact with cell membranes. The study found that these sharp-edged particles were readily taken up by lipid membranes, with their movement becoming increasingly constrained as particle size grew, providing fundamental insights into how plastic particle shape affects cellular uptake.

2023 The Journal of Physical Chemistry B 22 citations
Article Tier 2

Perturbation of Nanoplastics on Biomembranes: Molecular Insights from Neutron Scattering

Researchers used neutron scattering to study how polystyrene nanoplastics with and without surface modifications interact with model lipid bilayers. They found that nanoplastics disrupt membrane structure through physical insertion and bilayer thinning, with surface modifications significantly altering the degree of membrane perturbation.

2025
Article Tier 2

Surface-Functionalized Polystyrene Nanoparticles Alter the Transmembrane Potential via Ion-Selective Pores Maintaining Global Bilayer Integrity

Polystyrene nanoparticles were found to adsorb onto phospholipid bilayer membranes, forming disordered films that create ion-selective pores without disrupting global membrane integrity. These pores altered transmembrane electrical potential, suggesting a molecular mechanism by which nanoplastics could interfere with cellular function.

2022 Langmuir 17 citations
Article Tier 2

Interaction of Polystyrene Nanoplastic with Lipid Membranes

Researchers investigated how polystyrene nanoplastics derived from food packaging interact with lipid membranes, which serve as models for cell membranes. Using microscopy and molecular dynamics simulations, the study found that while water molecules initially act as a barrier to nanoplastic entry, once particles penetrate the membrane's polar region they rapidly move into the bilayer interior, and small-molecule additives like unreacted monomers can be released into the membrane during this process.

2025 The Journal of Physical Chemistry B 8 citations
Article Tier 2

Effects of Nanoplastics on Lipid Membranes and Vice Versa: Insights from All-Atom Molecular Dynamics Simulations

Researchers used molecular dynamics simulations to study how polyethylene nanoplastics interact with cell membrane models. They found that the mechanical properties of the lipid membrane, rather than the nanoplastic structure, primarily determine whether particles can penetrate cells. The study suggests that more flexible biological membranes may be more susceptible to nanoplastic penetration, providing insight into how these particles could enter living cells.

2025 The Journal of Physical Chemistry B 9 citations
Article Tier 2

Nanoplastics as a return to the prebiotic dimensional regime: A dimensional perspective on interactions with biological membranes

This paper offers a dimensional perspective on nanoplastic-membrane interactions, arguing that nanoplastics occupy the same size range as early prebiotic structures and can physically integrate with or disrupt lipid bilayers. The framework suggests that physical membrane perturbation — independent of chemical toxicity — is central to nanoplastic health risks.

2025 Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Article Tier 2

Polystyrene-Induced Dehydration of Lipid Membranes: Insights from Atomistic Simulations

Atomistic molecular dynamics simulations revealed that polystyrene nanoplastics cause dehydration of lipid membranes upon contact, extracting water molecules from the bilayer interface in ways that could alter membrane structure and function relevant to cellular uptake of nanoplastic particles.

2025 The Journal of Physical Chemistry B 2 citations
Article Tier 2

Distinguishing the nanoplastic–cell membrane interface by polymer type and aging properties: translocation, transformation and perturbation

Molecular simulations revealed that nanoplastic behavior at cell membranes differs significantly by polymer type and aging state, with distinct patterns of membrane translocation, transformation, and disruption. Aged nanoplastics showed altered interaction dynamics compared to pristine particles, suggesting weathering changes ecotoxicological risk.

2022 Environmental Science Nano 45 citations
Article Tier 2

Polystyrene-InducedDehydration of Lipid Membranes:Insights from Atomistic Simulations

Researchers used atomistic molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the dehydration of lipid membranes caused by polystyrene nanoplastics that have penetrated the bilayer. The findings revealed how nanoplastic particles alter the hydration state of membrane lipids, providing detailed mechanistic understanding of nanoplastic interactions with biological membranes.

2025 Figshare
Article Tier 2

Polystyrene-InducedDehydration of Lipid Membranes:Insights from Atomistic Simulations

Researchers used atomistic molecular dynamics simulations to investigate how polystyrene nanoplastics interact with lipid bilayer membranes after penetrating them, focusing specifically on whether and how such particles induce membrane dehydration. They found that polystyrene nanoplastics cause significant dehydration of lipid membranes, providing new mechanistic insight into nanoplastic-induced cellular disruption.

2025 Figshare
Article Tier 2

Nanoplastic-Induced Disruption of DPPC and Palmitic Acid Films: Implications for Membrane Integrity

Researchers studied how nanoplastics interact with lung and cell membrane lipids at the molecular level. They found that polystyrene nanoplastics can physically insert themselves into lipid films that mimic cell membranes, with greater disruption at higher concentrations. These findings help explain how nanoplastics may penetrate cellular barriers, potentially affecting lung function and allowing the particles to accumulate in biological tissues.

2025 Environmental Science & Technology 2 citations
Article Tier 2

Polystyrene and polyethylene perturb the structure of membrane: An experimental and computational study

Researchers combined cell experiments, molecular dynamics simulations, and toxicogenomic analysis to show that polystyrene and polyethylene nanoplastics — individually and as a mixture — physically penetrate cell membranes and form pores, with the mixture producing stronger disruption than either polymer alone.

2025 Environmental Pollution 2 citations
Article Tier 2

Variable Non-Gaussian Transport of Nanoplastic on Supported Lipid Bilayers in Saline Conditions

Single-particle tracking experiments revealed that polystyrene nanoplastics display non-Gaussian, anomalous transport behavior on supported lipid bilayer membranes in a salt-dependent manner, shedding light on how nanoplastics interact with biological membranes.

2024 The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters 8 citations
Article Tier 2

Polystyrene-InducedDehydration of Lipid Membranes:Insights from Atomistic Simulations

Researchers performed atomistic molecular dynamics simulations to characterize how polystyrene nanoplastics interact with and dehydrate lipid bilayer membranes following membrane penetration. The simulations revealed the structural and thermodynamic mechanisms by which nanoplastic particles disrupt membrane hydration, contributing to understanding of nanoplastic toxicity at the cellular level.

2025 Figshare
Article Tier 2

A Five-Stage Model of Nanoplastic Interaction with Biological Membranes

Researchers developed a five-stage conceptual model describing how nanoplastics interact with biological membranes, from initial surface corona acquisition through physical approach, adsorption, hydrophobic core penetration, and structural deformation. The model connects nanoplastic behavior to membrane stability outcomes — including stabilization, defect formation, or collapse — and links prebiotic vesicle behavior to modern cellular stress responses.

2025 Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Article Tier 2

A Five-Stage Model of Nanoplastic Interaction with Biological Membranes

Researchers developed a five-stage conceptual model describing how nanoplastics interact with biological membranes, from initial surface corona acquisition through physical approach, adsorption, hydrophobic core penetration, and structural deformation. The model connects nanoplastic behavior to membrane stability outcomes — including stabilization, defect formation, or collapse — and links prebiotic vesicle behavior to modern cellular stress responses.

2025 Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Article Tier 2

Understanding the transformations of nanoplastic onto phospholipid bilayers: Mechanism, microscopic interaction and cytotoxicity assessment

Researchers used molecular dynamics simulations to model how five types of nanoplastics (PVC, PS, PLA, PP, PET) interact with cell membrane lipid bilayers, finding that van der Waals forces dominate uptake and that nanoplastic accumulation reduces membrane thickness in a way that correlates with cytotoxicity.

2022 The Science of The Total Environment 22 citations
Article Tier 2

Polystyrene-InducedDehydration of Lipid Membranes:Insights from Atomistic Simulations

Researchers conducted atomistic simulations to examine how polystyrene nanoplastics induce dehydration in lipid bilayer membranes after penetrating the membrane interior. The simulation results provided molecular-level evidence that nanoplastic-membrane interactions cause lipid dehydration, offering mechanistic insight into how nanoplastics may disrupt cellular membrane function.

2025 Figshare
Article Tier 2

Cell-scale dynamic modeling of membrane interactions with arbitrarily shaped particles

A computational framework was developed for simulating membrane interactions with arbitrarily shaped colloidal particles (including irregular microplastics and nanoplastics), using triangulated mesh representations and Langevin dynamics to capture coupled translational and rotational dynamics of particle-vesicle interactions.

2025 Soft Matter 2 citations
Article Tier 2

Perturbation of Nanoplastics on Biomembranes: Molecular Insights from Neutron Scattering

Using neutron scattering, researchers found that polystyrene nanoplastics — with and without surface modifications — perturb the structure and dynamics of both simple and complex bacterial-model biomembranes, suggesting nanoplastics can physically disrupt cell membrane function.

2024
Article Tier 2

Nanoplastics as a return to the prebiotic dimensional regime: A dimensional perspective on interactions with biological membranes

This conceptual paper argues that nanoplastics are environmentally significant not primarily because of chemical toxicity, but because their nanoscale dimensions place them in the same physical regime as prebiotic structures that interact directly with biological membranes. The author proposes that membrane disruption, rather than chemical toxicity, is the key mechanism of nanoplastic harm.

2025 Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Article Tier 2

Can Nanoplastics Alter Cell Membranes?

Researchers used molecular dynamics simulations to show that polyethylene nanoplastics dissolve into the hydrophobic core of lipid bilayers as disentangled polymer chains, inducing structural and dynamic changes that alter vital cell membrane functions and may result in cell death.

2019 ChemPhysChem 137 citations