Yuanxiang Jin: College of Biotechnology and Bioengineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310032, China.
Jizhou Xia: College of Biotechnology and Bioengineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310032, China.
Zihong Pan: College of Biotechnology and Bioengineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310032, China.
Jiajing Yang: College of Biotechnology and Bioengineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310032, China.
Wenchao Wang: College of Biotechnology and Bioengineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310032, China.
Zhengwei Fu: College of Biotechnology and Bioengineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310032, China. Electronic address: azwfu@zjut.edu.cn.
Microplastic (MP) are environmental pollutants and have the potential to cause varying degrees of aquatic toxicity. In this study, the effects on gut microbiota of adult male zebrafish exposed for 14 days to 100 and 1000 μg/L of two sizes of PolystyreneMP were evaluated. Both 0.5 and 50 μm-diameter spherical PolystyreneMP increased the volume of mucus in the gut at a concentration of 1000 μg/L (about 1.456 × 10 particles/L for 0.5 μm and 1.456 × 10 particles/L for 50 μm). At the phylum level, the abundance of Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria decreased significantly and the abundance of Firmicutes increased significantly in the gut after 14-day exposure to 1000 μg/L of both sizes of PolystyreneMP. In addition, high throughput sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene V3-V4 region revealed a significant change in the richness and diversity of microbiota in the gut of PolystyreneMP-exposed zebrafish. A more in depth analysis, at the genus level, revealed that a total of 29 gut microbes identified by operational taxonomic unit (OTU) analysis were significantly changed in both 0.5 and 50 μm-diameter PolystyreneMP-treated groups. Moreover, it was observed that 0.5 μm PolystyreneMP not only increased mRNA levels of IL1α, IL1β and IFN but also their protein levels in the gut, indicating that inflammation occurred after PolystyreneMP exposure. Our findings suggest that PolystyreneMP could induce microbiota dysbiosis and inflammation in the gut of adult zebrafish.
