Comparative study on the toxic effects of secondary nanoplastics from biodegradable and conventional plastics on...

Because of the excellent properties, plastics have been widely used in the past decades and caused serious environmental issues. As an excellent substitute for conventional plastics, the biodegradable plastics have attracted increasing attention. However, biodegradable plastics may produce more micro/nanoplastics in the short time compared with conventional plastics, and cause more serious ecological risks. In this study, the short-term toxicity of nanoplastics released from biodegradable and conventional plastics on Streptomyces coelicolor M145 was investigated. After 30 days of degradation, the biodegradable microplastics, polylactic acid (PLA) and polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) released more secondary nanoplastics than conventional microplastics, polystyrene (PS). After exposure, PLA and PHA nanoplastics showed significant toxicity to M145. The survival rate of M145 cells was 16.1% after treatment with PLA nanoplastics for 7 days (PLA-7). The toxicity of PHA was lower than that of PLA. This might have been due to the agglomeration of PHA nanoplastics in the solution. Compared with the controls, the PS secondary nanoplastics showed no significant toxicity to M145. After the treatment, the production of antibiotics, actinorhodin (ACT) and undecylprodigiosin (RED), significantly increased. The yields of ACT and RED reached their maximum values after treatment with PLA-7, which were 4.2-fold and 2.1-fold higher than those of the controls, respectively. The addition of biodegradable nanoplastics significantly increased the expression of these key pathway-specific regulatory genes, leading to increased antibiotic production. This study provides toxicological insights into the impacts of conventional and biodegradable microplastics on S. coelicolor.