Micro- and Nanoplastics Breach the Blood-Brain Barrier (BBB): Biomolecular Corona's Role Revealed.
Level 5 - mechanism / opinion, no new human data
Preclinical animal model (mice) and computational molecular dynamics simulations.
PubMed 37110989 · doi:10.3390/nano13081404
What was done
Mice were orally administered polystyrene particles of three different sizes (9.55 µm, 1.14 µm, and 0.293 µm) via gavage in a short-term uptake study to determine blood-brain barrier (BBB) penetration. To evaluate transport mechanisms, researchers performed coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations modeling the interaction of 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DOPC) lipid bilayers with a polystyrene nanoparticle in the presence and absence of different biomolecular corona compositions (cholesterol and protein models).
What was found
Nanometer-sized particles (0.293 µm) reached the brain within 2 hours after oral gavage, whereas larger micrometer-sized particles (1.14 µm and 9.55 µm) did not. In computational simulations, the biomolecular corona composition altered membrane crossing: cholesterol molecules promoted polystyrene nanoparticle uptake into the lipid membrane, whereas the modeled protein corona inhibited it. The abstract reports no quantitative concentration or uptake values.
Why it matters
This study provides evidence that ingested nanometer-scale plastic particles can rapidly cross the blood-brain barrier in a mammal, and suggests that surface-bound biomolecules (the corona) critically dictate whether nanoparticles penetrate biological membranes.
Limits
The abstract does not state the number, sex, or strain of mice used, nor the administered doses or exact tissue concentrations achieved. The mechanistic insights rely on in silico lipid bilayer simulations rather than direct in vivo mechanistic tracking, and findings in rodent models may not directly extrapolate to human exposure kinetics or chronic health outcomes.
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- supports Nanoplastics smaller than 1 micrometer can cross the blood-brain barrier.