The environmental risk from long-term plastic pollution is growing. We investigated the multi and trans-generational reproductive toxicity of nanoplastics (NPs) in Caenorhabditis elegans and the underlying mechanisms over five generations. Following a single maternal exposure (F0) to NPs (100 nm; 1, 10, 50, or 100 mg/L) for 72 h, the subsequent generations (F1–F4) were cultured under NPs-free conditions. We showed that the total brood size was significantly reduced across all offspring generations (F1–F4). NPs accumulated in the intestine of C. elegans in the F0 generation, but not in the germline system, and not observed in subsequent generations. Chromosomal aberrations in oocytes and germline cell apoptosis were significantly elevated in the NPs-exposed F0 generation and in subsequent unexposed generations. Likewise, the expression of ced-3 was increased across generations, regulated by hypomethylation in the promoter region of ced-3 after maternal NPs exposure. Finally, NPs exposure reduced the expression of epigenesis-related genes met-2, set-2, and spr-5 and the trans-generational effects of maternal NPs exposure were not observed in met-2, set-2, and spr-5 RNAi worms. We demonstrate that a single long-term maternal NPs exposure can cause multi and trans-generational reproduction decline in C. elegans, which may be associated with germline toxicity and epigenetic regulation.

长期塑料污染带来的环境风险正在增加。我们调查了秀丽隐杆线虫的纳米塑料（NP）的多代和跨世代生殖毒性及其五代的潜在机制。在单次母体暴露（F0）暴露于NPs（100 nm； 1、10、50或100 mg / L）72小时后，在无NPs条件下培养了后代（F1-F4）。我们表明，所有后代（F1-F4）的总亲鱼大小都明显减少。秀丽隐杆线虫肠道中积累的NP在F0代中，但不在种系系统中，并且在后代中未观察到。在NPs暴露的F0代和随后的未暴露代中，卵母细胞的染色体畸变和种系细胞凋亡显着升高。同样，在母体NP暴露后，ced-3的启动子区域中的甲基化不足调节了ced-3的表达。最后，纳米颗粒暴露减少后生相关基因的表达满足-2 ，集-2 ，和SPR-5和产妇的NP曝光的跨代作用在未观察到满足-2 ，集-2 ，和SPR-5RNAi蠕虫。我们证明，单个长期母体NP暴露会导致秀丽隐杆线虫的多代和跨代繁殖下降，这可能与种系毒性和表观遗传调控有关。