Pathways to Identifying the Impacts of Microplastic Exposure on Aquatic Vertebrate Immunity
Abstract
Microplastics (MPs) (1 μm - 5 mm-) are now ubiquitous in the environment. They exhibit a variety of different shapes and compositions and accumulate in organs of virtually every organism. Recently, biomedical researchers have focused on nanoplastics (NP) (1 nm -1 μm ) because of their potential to enter organisms, cross cell barriers, and impact biological processes. Taken together, micro- and nano-plastics (MNP) are increasingly considered a contaminant of concern in freshwater systems such as the Laurentian Great Lakes in North America, which provide drinking water for 40 million people in the United States and Canada. We review here the current knowledge and challenges to overcome for evaluating the long-term consequences of MNP exposure in freshwater ecosystems and their aquatic vertebrates. We demonstrate how the use of a novel animal model in the amphibian Xenopus within the context of a transdisciplinary research center has the potential to rapidly advance knowledge about key biological mechanisms and potential health impacts of environmentally-relevant MNPs.
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