The microplastic particles are ubiquitously distributed in marine ecosystem and caused significant deleterious effects on marine life and human health through the food chain. Mussels are main benthic couplers as good bioindicators, ingesting MP partic...
The microplastic particles are ubiquitously distributed in marine ecosystem and caused significant deleterious effects on marine life and human health through the food chain. Mussels are main benthic couplers as good bioindicators, ingesting MP particles from the water into accumulation. This study examined the bioaccumulation and potential cellular toxicity to exposures of spherical and fibrous MPs in mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis for 24 and 96 h. Exposure of spherical MP induced high accumulation of the mussel body at 24 h, while exposure to fibrous MP increased the body accumulation of mussels in a time-dependent manner. TUNEL assay revealed DNA damage with cell apoptosis to exposures of both MPs. There are different DNA fragmentations according to the gills and digestive gland tissue of mussel M. galloprovincialis. In the gills, exposures to both MPs increased apoptotic cells (TUNEL positive cells) in a time and concentration- dependent manner. At 96 h, apoptotic cell proportion by fibrous MP is more higher than spherical MP condition. However, apoptotic cell signals are very low in the digestive gland exposed to both MPs. In addition, transcripional expressions of p53 gene, which to repair the damaged DNA or trigger cell death, are significantly upregulated in the only gill exposed to both MPs consistency in the pattern of cell apoptosis by TUNEL analysis. The results indicate that uptake and accumulation of MPs in mussels as key benthic couplers are different to types of MPs. It was confirmed that the sensitivity of cellular toxicity induced by MPs differs depending on the exposed tissue, and in particular, gill tissue showed high cell apoptosis to MP exposure.