credit: Mikes-Photography via pixabay

现在在环境的每个部分都发现了塑料废物，据估计15-51万亿件仅在我们的海洋中发现塑料。微塑料are plastics that are less than 5mm in length and, as they can take hundreds of years to degrade, will accumulate in organisms and the environment, causing harm for most life on Earth for many centuries to come.

Our news channels are full of articles about plastics and microplastics and their effect on human, animal and plant life through toxic poisoning, trapping marine life and such but, as yet, their effect on microorganisms has not seen the same level of journalistic attention. Nevertheless, the impact at the microbial level could have far reaching consequences foralllife on Earth.

加文李尔和同事在他们最近的评论中描述Environmental Microbiome,the different ways that microplastics could impact microorganisms… and, through them, us. They discuss the direct and indirect impact of microplastics on gut and environmental microbiota leading to increased abundance of pathogens that displace the normal (helpful) microbiota, causing longstanding health and environmental consequences.

Probably most disconcerting at this current time when the world is fighting a pandemic, is the potential of microplastics to become disease vectors, dispersing pathogens from one area to another.

Almost twenty years ago,Mercedes Maso and colleaguesshowed that plastics act as vectors for harmful algal bloom species such as dinoflagellates from the奥斯特雷斯和cooliagenera (both can be toxic to humans and animals). Since then, pathogenicVibrio spphave been detected in microplastics in the北海和波罗的海,Bay of Brest,Forth Estuary in Scotland和China coastline在别人,重要的是要注意Vibriospp并不是以这种方式检测到的唯一病原体。

杰克·鲍利及其同事describe how pathogenic microorganisms, such asVibrio spp，can attach to microplastics in the same way they would attach to natural particles such as sand or diatoms. It seems that microplastics easily resemble the size and structure of naturally occurring particles that bacteria would adhere to – and with trillions of pieces of plastic in the ocean, we have essentially just handed them many more ‘vehicles’ to use.

一旦遵守微塑料，致病性微生物可能会以三种方式构成威胁：通过长距离运输到脆弱的地区，例如通过洋流 - 变暖的水增加疾病的风险；在动物和植物（野生和耕种）中保留时间更长，从而影响食物网；并增加发生抗菌抗性基因的机会。

越来越多的研究研究了微塑料和微生物之间的关系 - 其中一些甚至描述了微生物物种的微塑性降解，甚至有助于减少微塑料的威胁。即使这样，由于在我们的环境中，由于微型污染如此之多，他们构成的危险不会​​很快消失。因此，我们现在主要认为环境的危机可能与人类，动植物健康有关。

我衷心希望情况并非如此，尤其是考虑到当前世界正在遇到的问题，但可能是在将来我们发现我们已经在众所周知的脚上开枪了很多次新的疾病媒介的创造者，促进爆发甚至大流行，导致病原体。此外，一个可以在“人口”规模上与蚊子相抗衡的媒介，并且将超过许多当前媒介。