The human body is exposed to microplastics in various routes as a result of the widespread usage of plastics. Ingestion is one of the routes of microplastic exposure in the human body; however, there is insufficient information about the changes in the properties of microplastics due to the interaction with the food matrix and the effect of this interaction on food safety. Some characteristic properties of particles such as aggregation behavior, morphology, and corona structure might differ greatly in the digestive process. In this project, we aimed to analyze the changes in the corona structure, dispersion behavior, morphology, and the toxicity of bare and food matrix (whole and skim milk) incorporated 1.8 µm polystyrene microparticles (PS) at different concentrations during in-vitro digestion to reveal the gastrointestinal tract fate of PS. Firstly, SEM and DLS analysis were used to examine the aggregation state of the digested bare and milk-interacted PS. The results showed that there was no significant difference in the hydrodynamic diameter of PS at different digestive juices, but their ζ-potentials had decreased after food interaction. It was understood that during the digesting simulation, the protein concentration and structure on PS's corona altered, and the change in the thickness of the corona was investigated by TEM analysis. At the final stage of the study, the cell viability of the human Caco2 cell lines was analyzed using MTT assay and ROS experiments to determine reactive oxygen species activity within cells. According to MTT analysis, any significant change was not observed following PS interaction at any concentrations, while ROS formation was decreased in PS that had interacted with the food matrix compared to bare PS because of the corona structure. As a consequence of this research, it has been revealed that food interactions of PS could change some characteristic properties of particles, and these interactions might be crucial for chronic exposure.

Investigating the effect of <i>in vitro</i> digestion on the physiological properties and toxicity of polystyrene microplastics in the real food matrix

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Investigating the effect of in vitro digestion on the physiological properties and toxicity of polystyrene microplastics in the real food matrix