Abstract
The extensive spread of microplastics (MPs) and nanoplastics (NPs) in the aquatic environment has attracted widespread attention. The toxicity of cadmium (Cd) combined with microplastics (MPs) and nanoplastics (NPs) toward freshwater algae Microcystis aeruginosa (M. aeruginosa) was investigated to evaluate the environmental behavior of the Cd complexation in fresh water. Cd alone has the highest toxicity to algae. Both MPs and NPs also have a negative effect on the growth of algae as individual components due to their adsorption of nutrients and disruption of the alga’s activity in a single MPs/NPs system. Compared with the single system, the toxicity of compound pollution including MPs + Cd and NPs + Cd becomes stronger, which presents a synergistic effect. In the presence of NPs, more extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) appeared, which helped to reduce the toxic effect on the algal cells. Moreover, MPs/NPs + Cd stimulate the production of microcystin-LR (MC-LR) under different treatments. Overall, the aquatic environmental assessment shows potentially elevated risks associated with combined MPs/NPs with Cd, which should be considered.
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The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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The work was financially supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51808002).
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Qiongjie Wang: conceptualization, methodology, writing—original draft, data curation, writing—review and editing. Jinxiaoxue Wang: investigation, formal analysis, visualization, software. Huijuan Chen: formal analysis, software, investigation, data. Yangyang Zhang: investigation, formal analysis, visualization, software.
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Highlights
• MPs/NPs combined with Cd showed a significant toxicity effect on M. aeruginosa.
• There was no significant difference in toxicity between MPs and NPs in the combined system.
• The content of protein in EPS had an impact on the toxicity of pollutants.
• MC-LR of alga was lower in the presence of MPs/NPs compared to Cd alone.
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Wang, Q., Wang, J., Chen, H. et al. Toxicity effects of microplastics and nanoplastics with cadmium on the alga Microcystis aeruginosa. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 17360–17373 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-23278-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-23278-0