Individual and combined toxicogenetic effects of microplastics and heavy metals (Cd, Pb, and Zn) perturb gut microbiota homeostasis and gonadal development in marine medaka (Oryzias melastigma)

Abstract Currently, microplastics (MPs) attracted increased attention for their ubiquity and toxic properties. In this study, marine medaka was used to explore the individual and combined toxicity of heavy metals (HMs) and MPs on intestinal bacteria and gonadal development. After exposure to environmentally relevant concentrations of MPs and HMs, significant alterations of intestinal microbiota were found. The MPs treatment reduced the diversity and abundance of intestinal microbiota, while the HMs and MPs-HMs treatments increased them, which were confirmed by the abundance changes of Proteobacteria. According to the KEGG analysis, the metabolism and environmental information processing (EIP) pathways in the microbial community were significantly affected. This study showed that the MPs-HMs treatment caused a higher pollution load on the gut of the marine medaka, and triggered more significant changes of specific bacterial species and gut function in the males. However, during the gonadal development, HMs and MPs-HMs treatments resulted in empty follicles (EF) and follicular atresia (FA), and altered the gene expression levels related to hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis. In short, this study demonstrated that the reproductive disturbance was mainly due to HMs, but the combination of MPs and HMs did not strengthen the risk to the gonad development of the marine medaka.