image: This is a cartoon illustrating the test food chain with 24 nm polystyrene nanoparticles added at a concentration of 0.01 percent (w/v) to an algal culture, which after 24 h was filtered and fed to herbivorous zooplankton (algae from 250 ml culture given to 30 adult Daphnia). After another 24 h, the zooplankton were gently washed on a net in order to remove remaining or released free nanoparticles before zooplankton were presented to the top consumers of the food chain (fish; 4 individuals per replicate tank). The food chain was restarted every third day and the fish remained the same throughout the study. The control food chain was operated in the same way except that no nanoparticles were added. Each food chain started with 16 fish divided into four tanks. The number of fish in each tank decreased over time due to sacrifice of fish for sampling. view more
Credit: Citation: Cedervall T, Hansson L-A, Lard M, Frohm B, Linse S (2012) Food Chain Transport of Nanoparticles Affects Behaviour and Fat Metabolism in Fish. PLoS ONE 7(12): e32254. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0032254
Nanoparticles have many useful applications, but also raise some potential health and ecological concerns. Now, new research shows that plastic nanoparticles are transported through the aquatic food chain and affect fish metabolism and behavior. The full report is published Feb. 22 in the open access journal PLoS ONE.
Exposing fish to nanoparticles slowed their feeding behavior, and also affected metabolic parameters including weight loss and cholesterol levels and distribution. The authors, led by Tommy Cedervall, Lars-Anders Hansson and Sara Linse of Lund University in Sweden, suggest that their results could be useful for developing assays to test for nanoparticles and investigate potential biological risks associated with them.
Citation: Cedervall T, Hansson L-A, Lard M, Frohm B, Linse S (2012) Food Chain Transport of Nanoparticles Affects Behaviour and Fat Metabolism in Fish. PLoS ONE 7(12): e32254. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0032254
Financial Disclosure: This work was supported by Nano Vaccin Centre (Copenhagen), the Crafoord Foundation (Lund), Swedish Government to the Nanometer StructureConsortium (Lund), and the Swedish Research Council, VR. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing Interest Statement: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
PLEASE LINK TO THE SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE IN ONLINE VERSIONS OF YOUR REPORT (URL goes live after the embargo ends): http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0032254
Journal
PLoS ONE