News paper – Seabirds in crisis
♻️NEW PAPER ALERT♻️ Global understanding of #plastics negative consequences has been hampered by relatively basic study design & overly simplistic tools. However, recent whole-of-body studies of #pathology distal from the point of exposure (ie. stomach) have made startling discoveries (eg., earlier this year our team described a new disease called #Plasticosis).
For this new study, we used #proteomics (a powerful diagnostic tool) to investigate the physiological responses of #seabirds to #PlasticIngestion. We found… even in healthy looking birds, the ingestion of plastic was sufficient to drastically change >200 unique #proteins within the #blood. There was also evidence of mass #CellLysis (death) in high-plastic impacted #birds.
Many proteins were downregulated, indicating multi-organ failure that affected the #brain, #kidney & especially #liver. We also recorded significant enrichment of proteins associated with #neurodegenerative #diseases (eg. #Alzheimers) in the birds with high plastic. These proteins play a critical role in the growth/survival of neurons, such as those associated with development of song in birds = likely impacts on #PairBonding & #BreedingSuccess in high plastic birds.
Finally, we detected stomach proteins within the birds’ blood, this demonstrates a breakdown in the stomach’s integrity & aligns with stomach #necrosis reported in one of our earlier studies (one-two punch paper). So, what’s the take-home message? Despite our study birds appearing healthy, this new #proteome data suggests their health is severely compromised. With >25% of the proteome altered between the low and high plastic impacted seabirds. A great physiological change has occurred…the invisible crisis has been revealed!
The lead author of this paper is one of our brilliant, hard-working PhD students, Alix de Jersey. Publishing a paper like this, in a top-tier journal such as Science Advances, speaks volumes about her ability to undertake high impact research in an organised and collaborative way. CONGRATS DJ, you’re an absolute legend!!