Table 3.

Selected toxicological effects of micro‐ and nanoplastics

Toxic effects	Microplastics	Model	Main findings	References
Gastrointestinal toxicity	PE	Blue mussel Mytilus edulis L.	Notable histological change and a strong inflammatory response	von Moos et al. (2012)
	PS	Adult male zebrafish	PS microplastics increased the expression of IL‐1α, IL‐1β and interferon in the gut; indicated microbiota dysbiosis and inflammation	Jin et al. (2018)
	PA, PE, PP, PVC and PS	Zebrafish and nematode	Villi cracking and splitting of enterocytes	Lei et al. (2018)
	PS	Male mice	Accumulation of PS microplastics in mice guts, consequently caused the reduction of intestinal mucus secretion damage of gut barrier function; metabolic disorders in mice	Jin et al. (2019)
	PS	AGS cells	Inflammatory gene expressions such as IL‐6 and IL‐8	Forte et al. (2016)
Liver toxicity	PS	Zebrafish	Inflammation and lipid accumulation both in 5 μm and 70 nm; oxidative stress and alterations in their metabolic profiles; disturbance of lipid and energy metabolism	Lu et al. (2016)
	PS	Eriocheir sinensis	Decreased activities of AChE, CAT, and ALT in Eriocheir sinensis liver; antioxidants CAT, SOD, GPx and GST level decreased in the liver; expressions of the genes encoding p38 in the MAPK signalling pathway was upregulated while significantly declined in ERK, AKT and MEK	Yu et al. (2018)
Liver toxicity	PS	Mouse	TG and TCH levels decreased; decreases on key gene expressions related to lipogenesis and TG synthesis in liver indicating mouse hepatic lipid disorder	Lu et al. (2018)
	PS	Zebra mussel Dreissena polymorpha	Dopamine concentration increased	Magni et al. (2018)
Neurotoxicity	PS	T98G cells	Increases of ROS, oxidative stress	Schirinzi et al. (2017)
Reproductive toxicity	PS	Oysters	Oocyte number, diameter and sperm velocity decreased in oysters	Sussarellu et al. (2016)
	PS	acs‐22 mutant Caenorhabditis elegans	Accumulation of nanopolystyrene particles in gonad, dysregulation of some oxidative stress genes	Man et al. (2018)

PA: polyamide; PE: polyethylene; PP: polypropylene; PVC: polyvinylchloride; PS: polystyrene.