4.8 Review

Potential Artifacts and Control Experiments in Toxicity Tests of Nanoplastic and Microplastic Particles

Journal

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Volume 56, Issue 22, Pages 15192-15206

Publisher

AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.2c04929

Keywords

microplastics; nanoplastics; measurement quality; artifacts; control experiments

Funding

  1. National Natural Science Foundation of China
  2. USDA Hatch Program
  3. Natural Environment Research Council, UK
  4. [42192572]
  5. [U2106213]
  6. [MAS00549]
  7. [NERC/NE/N006526/1]

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Accurate measurements are crucial for fully understanding the potential risks of nanoplastics and microplastics (NMPs) to the environment and human health. This paper comprehensively reviews and suggests a next generation of control experiments to identify measurement artifacts and biases that may occur during NMP toxicity experiments. Incorporating these control experiments can reduce false positive and false negative results and provide a more accurate assessment of the potential risks of NMPs to both ecology and human health.
To fully understand the potential ecological and human health risks from nanoplastics and microplastics (NMPs) in the environment, it is critical to make accurate measurements. Similar to past research on the toxicology of engineered nanomaterials, a broad range of measurement artifacts and biases are possible when testing their potential toxicity. For example, antimicrobials and surfactants may be present in commercially available NMP dispersions, and these compounds may account for toxicity observed instead of being caused by exposure to the NMP particles. Therefore, control measurements are needed to assess potential artifacts, and revisions to the protocol may be needed to eliminate or reduce the artifacts. In this paper, we comprehensively review and suggest a next generation of control experiments to identify measurement artifacts and biases that can occur while performing NMP toxicity experiments. This review covers the broad range of potential NMP toxicological experiments, such as in vitro studies with a single cell type or complex 3-D tissue constructs, in vivo mammalian studies, and ecotoxicity experiments testing pelagic, sediment, and soil organisms. Incorporation of these control experiments can reduce the likelihood of false positive and false negative results and more accurately elucidate the potential ecological and human health risks of NMPs.

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