“…The public health risks of pathogens within the plastisphere are poorly resolved, due to limited evidence of pathogenicity and/or expression of virulence factors [35,75]. The presence of pathogenic-related taxa in the plastisphere does not necessarily correlate with pathogenicity and virulence [12,7]; and there remains uncertainty about whether pathogens attached to microplastics pose a relevant risk to human health [48,9]. To date, studies which have assigned genes encoding virulence mechanisms to specific pathogens in the plastisphere have been unable to confirm whether these genes are expressed in situ [56,59].…”