Skip to main content
Log in

Oxidative stress, energy metabolism and molecular responses of earthworms (Eisenia fetida) exposed to low-density polyethylene microplastics

  • Research Article
  • Published:
Environmental Science and Pollution Research Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Soils are both a sink and a pathway of plastic wastes, but there is a great lack of knowledge regarding their impacts on soil biota. To tackle the mechanisms of toxicity of these contaminants to soil invertebrates, earthworms (Eisenia fetida Savigny, 1826) were exposed during 28 days to different concentrations of low-density polyethylene microplastics (62, 125, 250, 500 and 1000 mg MPs kg−1 soildw) with sizes ranging between 250 and 1000 μm, in an artificial soil. The ecotoxicological responses were evaluated by analysing various oxidative stress biomarkers (catalase, glutathione S-transferase and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances), a biomarker of energy metabolism (lactate dehydrogenase) and overall organism molecular changes by Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) analyses. Significant effects resulting from an unbalanced oxidative stress system, expressed in terms of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances levels were recorded on earthworms exposed at the three highest concentrations tested. Despite that, no significant changes were recorded on the molecular profiles of earthworms by FTIR-ATR. NMR analysis pointed out for differences from the control, only for earthworms exposed to the lowest concentration of MPs. Considering that stress responses are complex, and involve multiple mechanisms, a cluster analysis taking into account all the parameters assessed, clearly identified two groups of earthworms separated by the concentration of 250 mg MPs kg−1 soildw, above each meaningful effects were recorded.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

References

Download references

Funding

This study was financially supported by the following: NORTE 2020, under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the ERDF and within the framework of the project INNOVMAR—Innovation and Sustainability in the Management and Exploitation of Marine Resources (grant number NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000035, within RL ECOSERVICES); financial support, through FCT/MEC (PIDDAC) (grant number IF/00407/2013/CP1162/CT0023) with national funds; CESAM (grant number UID/AMB/50017); CIIMAR (grant number UID/Multi/04423/2013) by their financial support, given by FCT/MEC through national funds and the co-funding by the FEDER, within the PT2020 Partnership Agreement and Compete 2020. Andrés Rodríguez-Seijo would like to thank the University of Vigo for his predoctoral fellowship (grant number 00VI 131H 64102), Dra. Maria Flora Alonso Vega and BEV1 research group for his postdoctoral contract (grant number V534 131H 6450211). J. P. da Costa wishes to thank the financial support by the Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT) through its individual scholarship (SFRH/BPD/122538/2016) financed under POCH funds and co-financed by the European Social Fund and Portuguese National Funds from MEC.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Andrés Rodríguez-Seijo.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest..

Research involving human participants and/or animals

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or vertebrate animals performed by any of the authors.

Additional information

Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues

Electronic supplementary material

ESM 1

(PDF 35 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Rodríguez-Seijo, A., da Costa, J.P., Rocha-Santos, T. et al. Oxidative stress, energy metabolism and molecular responses of earthworms (Eisenia fetida) exposed to low-density polyethylene microplastics. Environ Sci Pollut Res 25, 33599–33610 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-018-3317-z

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-018-3317-z

Keywords

Navigation