Combined Effects of Micro- and Nanoplastics at the Predicted Environmental Concentration on Functional State of Intestinal Barrier in Caenorhabditis elegans

The possible toxicity caused by nanoplastics or microplastics on organisms has been extensively studied. However, the unavoidably combined effects of nanoplastics and microplastics on organisms, particularly intestinal toxicity, are rarely clear. Here, we employed Caenorhabditis elegans to investigate the combined effects of PS-50 (50 nm nanopolystyrene) and PS-500 (500 nm micropolystyrene) at environmentally relevant concentrations on the functional state of the intestinal barrier. Environmentally, after long-term treatment (4.5 days), coexposure to PS-50 (10 and 15 μg/L) and PS-500 (1 μg/L) resulted in more severe formation of toxicity in decreasing locomotion behavior, in inhibiting brood size, in inducing intestinal ROS production, and in inducting intestinal autofluorescence production, compared with single-exposure to PS-50 (10 and 15 μg/L) or PS-500 (1 μg/L). Additionally, coexposure to PS-50 (15 μg/L) and PS-500 (1 μg/L) remarkably caused an enhancement in intestinal permeability, but no detectable abnormality of intestinal morphology was observed in wild-type nematodes. Lastly, the downregulation of acs-22 or erm-1 expression and the upregulation expressions of genes required for controlling oxidative stress (sod-2, sod-3, isp-1, clk-1, gas-1, and ctl-3) served as a molecular basis to strongly explain the formation of intestinal toxicity caused by coexposure to PS-50 (15 μg/L) and PS-500 (1 μg/L). Our results suggested that combined exposure to microplastics and nanoplastics at the predicted environmental concentration causes intestinal toxicity by affecting the functional state of the intestinal barrier in organisms.