The Burden of Plastic in Human Health: presence of microplastics in human kidney and urine and their prospective nephrotoxicity

Plastic debris is defined on the basis of their dimensions in microplastics (between 5 mm and 1 µm) and nanoplastics (< 1µm). Micro and nano-plastic (NPs) pollution is growing exponentially in the last decades, and there are increasing evidences of the ubiquitous distribution of plastic contaminants in the environment. potential deleterious effects of MPs on human beings. This is the first study aimed to investigate the presence of MPs in human kidney. Moreover, we analyzed the effect of microparticles of PE on HK2 kidney tubular cells. In vivo we investigated the presence of MPs in urine and kidney tissues and we characterized the microparticles found through Micro-Raman Spectroscopy. In vitro we analyzed the effect of PE-MPs, BPA, and co-treatment BPA-MPs on HK2 kidney tubular cells. We performed different cells culture conditions and we analyzed various biomarkers of inflammation, oxidative stress, and mitochondrial activity. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that demonstrated the presence of MPs and their compounds in human urine and kidney tissue. In particular, this is the first study that advance evidence of MPs clearance in humans. Moreover, we added new evidences of their potential nephrotoxic effect in vitro on HK2 tubular cells using PE-microspheres and BPA.