scholarly journals Interactions of Microplastics with Persistent Organic Pollutants and the Ecotoxicological Effects: A Review

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-34
Author(s):  
Kuok Ho Daniel Tang

With the increasing presence of microplastics and persistent organic pollutants (POPs), it is crucial to understand the interactions between the two emerging environmental pollutants and their ecotoxicological risks. This paper reviews more than 50 relevant scholarly papers published mainly in the past 10 years. It shows that the sorption of POPs to microplastics is affected by environmental factors and the properties of microplastics. The environmental factors comprise salinity, pH, natural organic matters and temperature. The properties of microplastics include degree of aging, molecular weight, size, shape, density, crystallinity, polymer type and color. The two factors are interconnected through weathering and weatherability of microplastics, where properties of microplastics, hence their interactions with POPs would be modified by environmental factors. Microplastics are potential vectors of POPs due to their ability to sorb and concentrate POPs. However, the studies reviewed showed the impacts to be low or insignificant and the sorbed POPs do not demonstrate significantly high accumulation, bioavailability and toxicity. In some literature, it has been reported that microplastics might reduce POPs in an organism. Due to limited studies and opposing views, there is a need to conduct more studies involving diverse POPs and microplastics under multiple conditions to provide a more holistic understanding on this subject.

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlene Cervantes González

Abstract Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) are exogenous, artificially made chemicals that can disrupt the biological system of individuals and animals. POPs encompass a variety of chemicals including, dioxins, organochlorines (OCs), polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs), and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) that contain a long half-life and highly resistant to biodegradation. These environmental pollutants accumulate over time in adipose tissues of living organisms and alter various insulin function-related genes. Childhood Metabolic Syndrome (MetS) consists of multiple cardiovascular risk factors, insulin function being one of them. Over the years, the incidence of the syndrome has increased dramatically. It is imperative to explore the role of persistent organic pollutants in the development of Childhood Metabolic Syndrome. Some epidemiological studies have reported an association between prenatal exposure to POPs and offspring MetS development throughout childhood. These findings have been replicated in animal studies in which these pollutants exercise negative health outcomes such as obesity and increased waist circumference. This review discusses the role of prenatal exposure to POPs among offspring who develop MetS in childhood, the latest research on the MetS concept, epidemiological and experimental findings on MetS, and the POPs modes of action. This literature review identified consistent research results on this topic. Even though the studies in this review had many strengths, one major weakness was the usage of different combinations of MetS criteria to measure the outcomes. These findings elucidate the urgent need to solidify the pediatric MetS definition. An accurate definition will permit scientists to measure the MetS as a health outcome properly and allow clinicians to diagnose pediatric MetS and provide individualized treatment appropriately.


2020 ◽  
pp. 0958305X1989678 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bishwambhar Mishra ◽  
Sunita Varjani ◽  
Gopalakrishnan Kumar ◽  
Mukesh Kumar Awasthi ◽  
Sanjeev Kumar Awasthi ◽  
...  

Environmental contamination with persistent organic pollutants has emerged as a serious threat of pollution. Bioremediation is a key to eliminate these harmful pollutants from the environment and has gained the interest of researchers during the past few decades. Scientific knowledge upon microbial interactions with individual pollutants over the past decades has helped to abate environmental pollution. Traditional bioremediation approaches have limitations for their applications; hence, it is essential to discover new bioremediation approaches with biotechnological interventions for best results. The developments in various methodologies are expected to increase the efficiency of bioremediation techniques and provide environmentally sound strategies. This paper deals with the profiling of microorganisms present in polluted sites using various techniques such as culture-based approaches and omics-based approaches. Besides this, it also provides up-to-date scientific literature on the microbial electrochemical technologies which are nowadays considered as the best approach for remediation of pollutants. Detailed information about future outlook and challenges to evaluate the effect of various treatment technologies for remediation of pollutants has been discussed.


2012 ◽  
Vol 79 (4) ◽  
pp. 1110-1117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chang Ding ◽  
Wai Ling Chow ◽  
Jianzhong He

ABSTRACTPolybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are a class of environmental pollutants that have been classified as persistent organic pollutants since 2009. In this study, a sediment-free enrichment culture (culture G) was found to reductively debrominate octa- and penta-BDE technical mixtures to less-brominated congeners (tetra-, tri-, and di-BDEs) via apara-dominant debromination pattern for the former and a strictparadebromination pattern for the latter. Culture G could debrominate 96% of 280 nM PBDEs in an octa-BDE mixture to primarily tetra-BDEs in 21 weeks. Continuous transferring of culture G with octa-/penta-BDEs dissolved inn-nonane or trichloroethene (TCE) yielded two strains (Acetobacteriumsp. strain AG andDehalococcoidessp. strain DG) that retained debromination capabilities. In the presence of lactate but without TCE, strain AG could cometabolically debrominate 75% of 275 nM PBDEs in a penta-BDE mixture in 33 days. Strain AG shows 99% identity to its closest relative,Acetobacterium malicum. In contrast to strain AG, strain DG debrominated PBDEs only in the presence of TCE. In addition, 18 out of 19 unknown PBDE debromination products were successfully identified from octa- and penta-BDE mixtures and revealed, for the first time, a comprehensive microbial PBDE debromination pathway. As an acetogenic autotroph that rapidly debrominates octa- and penta-BDE technical mixtures,Acetobacteriumsp. strain AG adds to the still-limited understanding of PBDE debromination by microorganisms.


Author(s):  
Akash ◽  
Vinay Mohan Pathak ◽  
Neelesh Babu ◽  
Navneet

This chapter describes how pollutants are increasing in the environment due to the rapid industrialization all over the world. The environment has been contaminated with large number of organic and inorganic pollutants. The organic pollutants are largely anthropogenic and are introduced to the environment in many ways. Soil contamination with toxic metals, such as Cd, Pb, Cr, Zn, Ni, etc., as a result of worldwide industrialization has increased noticeably within the past few years. Bioremediation is a process for reclaiming the environment which has been polluted with the help of living forms. It is an option that offers the possibility to destroy various contaminants using natural biological activity and to degrade the environmental contaminants into less toxic forms. It is also applicable for the heavy metal hazards. It has proven to be cheap and efficient than other techniques. This chapter focuses on the possible trends in the remediation of environment pollutants with the help of plants as well as microbes.


Author(s):  
E A. Belinskaya ◽  
S. E. Mazina ◽  
E. K. Pichugina ◽  
G. V. Zykova

The paper considers the influence of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins, dibenzofurans, biphenyls and benz[a] pyrene on the germination of barley seeds, as well as the influence of pollutants on seed storage. As a result of the experiments, the negative effect of polychlorinated biphenyls on seed germination at a concentration of 100 μg/ kg has been found, which can be explained by the high accumulation of low-chlorinated pollutants by seeds. The negative effect of benz[a]pyrene on seed germination at concentrations of 20 and 100 μg/kg has been registered.


2009 ◽  
Vol 43 (21) ◽  
pp. 8173-8177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Bogdal ◽  
Peter Schmid ◽  
Markus Zennegg ◽  
Flavio S. Anselmetti ◽  
Martin Scheringer ◽  
...  

Insects ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 818
Author(s):  
Meng-Wei Shen ◽  
Hung-Chuan Chen ◽  
Shyi-Tien Chen

The potential use of invertebrates as bioreactors to treat environmental pollutants is promising and of great interest. Three types of the persistent organic pollutants (POPs), namely pentachlorophenol (PCP), PAHs (naphthalene and phenanthrene) and dieldrin (DLN), were spiked in soil and treated by using Oryctes rhinoceros larvae, a known pest of coconut trees in southeast Asia, and also the indicators of POP toxicity and the fate and degradability of the ingested POPs were assessed. The larvae were tested at various levels of the POPs and went through an acclimation process. Without acclimation, the tolerance limits of the larvae toward PCP, PAHs and DLN were 200, 100 and 0.1 mg/kg-soil, respectively, yet with acclimation, the tolerance levels increased to 800, 400 and 0.5 mg/kg-soil, respectively. Biodegradation rates of all the tested POPs were >90% by week 2, with <5% and nearly 0% remaining in the feces and body of the larvae, respectively. The results suggest that the use of the beetle larvae in soil POP decontamination is doable.


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