Resveratrol exerts protective effects on ovarian injury, decreased oocyte quality and zona pellucida softening due to obesity.

The occurrence and development of breast cancer are closely related to dietary factors, especially dietary patterns. This study was to investigate the effects of dietary patterns on the process of tumor metastasis by in vivo circulating tumor cell (CTC) capture strategy and monitoring changes of CTC numbers in breast tumor mice model. Meanwhile, the effects of different dietary patterns on the development of lung metastases of breast cancer and the volume and weight of carcinoma in situ were investigated. In this study, the increase in the number of CTCs was significantly promoted by dietary patterns such as high-salt diet, high-sugar diet, and high-fat diet, while it was delayed by ketogenic diet, low-fat diet, low-protein diet, diet restriction, and Mediterranean diet. These results indicated that the in vivo capture and detection of CTCs provides a convenient method for real-time cancer metastasis monitoring, and through in-depth study of the effects of different dietary patterns on tumor growth and metastasis, it can expand a new horizon in future cancer treatments.

Understanding of the potential leaching of plastic particles, particularly nanoplastics (NPs), from food packaging is crucial in assessing the safety of the packaging materials. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate potential exposure risks by simulating the release of NPs from various plastic packaging materials, including polypropylene (PP), general casting polypropylene (GCPP) or metalized casting polypropylene (MCPP), polyethylene (PE), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), and polyphenylene sulfone (PPSU), under corresponding food consumption scenarios. Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were utilized to identify and characterize the NPs leached from plastic packaging. The presence of separated NPs was observed in PP groups subjected to 100 °C hot water, GCPP plastic sterilized at a high temperature (121 °C), and PE plastic soaked in 100 °C hot water, exhibited a distorted morphology and susceptibility to aggregation. The findings suggest that the frequent consumption of takeaway food, hot beverages served in disposable paper cups, and foods packaged with GCPP materials may elevate the risk of ingestion of NPs. This reminds us that food packaging can serve as an important avenue for human exposure to NPs, and the results can offer valuable insights for food safety management and the development of food packaging materials.

Current toxicology research on nanoplastics (NPs) generally uses commercial spherical NPs. However, the physicochemical characteristics of commercial NPs are significantly different from those of NPs formed under natural conditions, possibly affecting the validity of the results. In analytical chemistry, a reference sample is selected such that its physicochemical properties are as similar as possible to the target. Therefore, a simulated “natural” NP synthesized in the laboratory that closely resembles naturally derived NPs would be used as an authentic standard. Here, we established the assay of scanning electron microscope (SEM)-particle size distribution analyzer (PSDA)-surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) to detect NPs and prepared simulated “natural” NPs from polypropylene food packaging material using a method that mimics natural conditions. Nanofiltration was used to isolate three sets of simulated NPs with particle sizes ranging from 50–100 nm, 100–200 nm, and 200–400 nm. These simulated “natural” NPs were more similar to naturally occurring counterparts when compared with commercial NPs. These new standard NPs, which should be scalable for large-scale use, will improve the accuracy, reliability, and translatability of toxicological studies of NPs.

Congenital spinal malformation, a significant birth defect with unclear etiology, has been increasingly associated with environmental factors in recent studies. This research focuses on the effects of two emerging environmental pollutants, nanoplastics (NPs) and acetaminophen (APAP), on spinal development. Using a juvenile zebrafish model, we systematically evaluated the toxic effects and transcriptomic alterations induced by individual and combined exposure to two pollutants. Specifically, we assessed variations in spinal morphology and bone mineral density parameters across different treatment groups through calcein fluorescence staining and three-dimensional micro-CT imaging. Our findings demonstrate that APAP exposure alone significantly induces spinal abnormalities, such as scoliosis and bone defects. Interestingly, co-exposure with NPs indicated lower toxic effects. Transcriptome sequencing analyses suggested that APAP may disrupt bone development homeostasis by interfering with endoplasmic reticulum protein processing, Wnt and BMP signaling pathways, and the expression of key osteogenic genes. Compared with sole exposure to APAP, the composite exposure to both NPs and APAP significantly reversed the inhibitory state of genes such as runx3, tbx6, sox9b, and bmpr2b in the core pathway of bone development and weakened the transcriptional interference of wnt7bb and plcd1b, indicating that the overall transcriptional disturbance intensity of APAP on the bone development network is reduced under composite exposure conditions. This study provides experimental evidence that NPs can mitigate the skeletal developmental toxicity induced by APAP, as confirmed by both phenotypic reversal and transcriptomic data. The qRT-PCR validation confirmed the downregulation of key osteogenic genes (e.g., tbx6, wnt7aa, bmpr2b) under APAP exposure and their recovery under co-exposure conditions. These findings provide novel insights into the complex interactions among environmental pollutants and their implications for the etiology of congenital spinal malformations.