Nanoplastics and Human Health: Hazard Identification and Biointerface

Abstract

Nanoplastics are associated with several risks to the ecology and toxicity to humans. Nanoplastics are synthetic polymers with dimensions ranging from 1 nm to 1 μm. They are directly released to the environment or secondarily derived from plastic disintegration in the environment. Nanoplastics are widely detected in environmental samples and the food chain; therefore, their potentially toxic effects have been widely explored. In the present review, an overview of another two potential sources of nanoplastics, exposure routes to illustrate hazard identification of nanoplastics, cell internalization, and effects on intracellular target organelles are presented. In addition, challenges on the study of nanoplastics and future research areas are summarized. This paper also summarizes some approaches to eliminate or minimize the levels of nanoplastics to ensure environmental safety and improve human health.

Cytotoxicity Assessment of Nanoplastics and Plasticizers Exposure in In Vitro Lung Cell Culture Systems—A Systematic Review

“…The effects evidenced in these studies at energy production mechanism show how NPs can have a negative impact and be a possible stressor on the energy metabolism and efficiency. This means that the mitochondria and other organelles have a role in the toxicity of NPs, as stated by other authors [ 63 , 64 ].…”

A Diagrammatic Mini-Review on Soil-Human Health-Nexus: with Focus on Soil Nano-Pollution

“…2). Although there are several kinds of pollutants, nano-plastic is considered a serious source for human health as reported by many articles (e.g., He et al 2021;Cárdenas-Alcaide et al 2022;Huang et al 2022;Lai et al 2022;Zhou et al 2023). Several risks to the ecology and toxicity to humans have been confirmed and associated with nano-plastics (Lai et al 2022), which their adverse effects on human health could be taken place through uptake and translocation pathways (Fig.…”

Adsorption of Different Pollutants by Using Microplastic with Different Influencing Factors and Mechanisms in Wastewater: A Review

“…For example, the pathways by which the environment or its inherent toxic monomers and additives enter the aquatic food web were MPs [7]. MPs can enter agroecosystems with toxic effects [8] but also enter organisms [9] to cause cellular internalization and affect intracellular target organelles [10]. Moreover, there are many difficulties in fully solving nano plastics due to the limited methodologies for selectively recognizing nano plastics [11].…”