Toxicological effects of nano- and micro-polystyrene plastics on red tilapia: Are larger plastic particles more harmless?

Nanoplastics (NPs) and microplastics (MPs) are a heterogeneous class of pollutants with diverse sizes in aquatic environments. To evaluate the hazardous effects of N/MPs with different sizes, the accumulation, oxidative stress, cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes, neurotoxicity, and metabolomics changes were investigated in the red tilapia exposed to three sizes of polystyrene (PS) N/MPs (0.3, 5, and 70 − 90 μm). After 14-d exposures, the largest particles (70 − 90 μm) showed the highest accumulation levels in most cases. Exposures to PS-MPs (5 and 70 − 90 μm) caused a more severe oxidative stress in red tilapia than PS-NPs. The activity of CYP3A-related enzyme was obviously inhibited by PS-NPs, whereas the CYP enzymes in the liver may not be sensitive to MP exposures. In the brain, only 5 μm PS-MPs significantly inhibited the acetylcholinesterase activity. After exposures, the treatments with 0.3, 5, and 70 − 90 μm N/MPs resulted in 31, 40, and 23 significantly differentially expressed metabolites, respectively, in which the pathway of tyrosine metabolism was significantly affected by all the three PS-N/MP exposures. Overall, the PS particles within the μm size posed more severe stress to red tilapia. Our results suggest that the toxicity of N/MPs may not show a simply monotonic negative correlation with their sizes.