EFFECT OF ENVIRONMENTAL MICROPLASTICS INGESTION ON ZEBRAFISH (Danio rerio) METABOLISM

The problematic of microplastic pollution has been studied for years, so that their distribution, composition and the physical hazards they imply for marine organisms have been widely reported. Once all this has been well defined, it would be time to researching on polluted MPs' impact on marine organisms' metabolism. Potential damage at cellular levels as well as at different food-web levels should be investigated. In this work, we have studied the effect of environmental microplastics (MPs) on vertebrate model organism, Danio rerio (zebrafish). MPs were collected from two beaches of Canary Island, Lambra-beach in La Graciosa, and Poris-beach in Tenerife. Zebrafish were exposed to four different diets during 60 days: a control diet (A), food with 10% virgin MPs (B), food with 10% Lambra-MPs (C), and food with 10% Poris-MPs (D). We sampled the organisms at the beginning of the experiment (T0), after 7 (T7), after 30 (T30), and after 60 days (T60). We measured D. rerio's electron transport system activity (ETS), proteins (PROT), lipids (LIP), and carbohydrates (CARB) content and, in energetic terms, energy available (Ea), energy consumed (Ec), and the CEA index (a proxy to study the energy budget balance). No significant differences (p Also see: https://micro2022.sciencesconf.org/427116/document