Institut Charles Sadron News

The magnitude of the plastic pollution in oceans and its consequences on wildlife physiology draws our attention to the visible large scale consequences of this waste for living organisms. A more insidious threat lies in the oligomeric chain fragments resulting from its degradation. These molecules are hard to detect and their tiny dimensions enable them to sneak in and penetrate almost everywhere, and possibly in our cells! A team of scientists of the Institut Charles Sadron (CNRS/University of Strasbourg) shows it: even small amount of polystyren oligomers can penetrate into the cell membranes and possibly meddle with essential functions. These results are exposed in the PNAS journal.

Reference

Accumulation of styrene oligomers alters lipid membrane phase order and miscibility, Mattia I. Morandi, Monika Kluzek, Jean Wolff, André Schröder, Fabrice Thalmann and Carlos M. Marques, PNAS, 26 janvier 2021

https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2016037118