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Microplastics can deform cell membranes and a | EurekAlert!

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Vladimir Baulin, physicist and researcher in the Department of Physical and Inorganic Chemistry at the URV, in collaboration with Jean-Baptiste Fleury, of the University of Saarland (Germany), has discovered in a recent study that microplastics can mechanically destabilize lipid membranes by adhering to and tightening them. The results of the study were published in the scientific journal PNAS.

image: Vladimir Baulin view more Credit: URV It is estimated that, since the 1950s, more than 70 million tonnes of microplastics have been dumped into the oceans due to industrial manufacturing processes. These plastics are ingested by aquatic and human organisms through water, food and the air we breathe. It is estimated that their size ranges from 0.1 microns to 5 millimeters and are made mainly of polypropylene, polyethylene, polystyrene, polyamide and acrylics. Plastic particles the size of a micrometer are present literally everywhere: in the oceans, in the air, in the snow of the Himalay

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