The issue of the journal Science of the Total Environment contains the findings.
The pilot study tested the feasibility of using plankton from theCPR survey to reconstruct historical trends in marine pollution. The increase in childhood and adult chronic disease that has occurred around the world since the 1980's motivated us to explore these new methods.
There is a strong correlation between ocean pollution and human health. We wanted to know if changes in the plankton exposome correlate with the health of the fish population.
Can chemicals in plankton be used to measure changes in the global Chemosphere that may contribute to childhood and adult illness? We wanted to see if the rapid turnover and sensitivity to plankton would make them a marine version of the canary in the coal mine.
The longest running survey in the world is based in the UK. Almost 300 ships have traveled more than 7 million miles towing sampling devices to capture plankton and environmental data in all of the world's oceans, the Mediterranean, Baltic and North seas.
The goal of the effort is to document and monitor the general health of oceans, based on the well-being of marine plankton, a diverse collection of usually tiny organisms that provide sustenance for many other aquatic creatures.
According to the study co-author, marine plankton exist in all ocean environments. They play an important role in maintaining the health and balance of the oceans by creating complex communities that form the base of the food web. Plankton are very sensitive to the environment.
A variety of technologies were used to evaluate plankton specimen taken from three different locations in the North Pacific.
The researchers said that many pollutants have decreased in amount over the past two decades but not universally. The levels of legacy POPs and the common antibiotic amoxicillin have declined in the North Pacific Ocean over the past 20 years, possibly in part from increased federal regulation and a decrease in overall antibiotic use in the United States and Canada.
The most polluted samples were taken from areas close to humans. There were higher levels of different chemicals found in plankton in those areas.
The pilot project points the way to follow up research on correlations between plankton exposome, predator-prey relationships and impacted fisheries.
There is a need for follow-up studies by epidemiologists and marine ecologists to find out if the plankton exposome is related to important medical trends in nearby human populations.
There are new clues to explain the nature of chronic diseases in which phases of the cell danger response persist.
For more than a decade, Naviaux and colleagues have argued that accumulating data shows that many diseases and chronic illnesses are at least partly the result of malfunctioning metabolism.
CDR can be affected by environmental factors that result in chronic disease, and has been the subject of many publications.
The purpose of CDR is to help protect the cell and jump-start the healing process after injury by causing the cell to change its behavior, and redirecting energy and resources for defense until the danger has passed.
Sometimes the CDR doesn't work. The way the cell responds to the world won't be altered by this. Even though the original cause of the injury or threat has passed, cells still act as if they are in danger. Environmental chemicals, trauma, infections, and other types of stress can affect the healing cycle. The symptoms of chronic disease are caused when this occurs.
The CDR begins with the cells. The bio-sentinels in the cell act as monitors of the cell's chemistry and surroundings. Mitochondria make the building blocks needed for tissue repair after an injury.
Perfluoroalkyl substances,chemicals commonly used to enhance water-resistance in various everyday products, were prominent in the plankton exposome.
An importantidase used to regulate cortisol metabolism and organisms' responses to stress is inhibited by such substances. Pthalates were found in personal care and plastic products. More than 20 years have passed since the plankton exposome began to show an increase in the number of thalates.
"Plankton are responding to the chemicals in their exposome, in part by changes in their own mitochondria that change their biology," said Naviaux. It is my hope that the use of our methods by research groups around the world will provide new tools to monitor how the human chemical footprint has changed over the last century.
plankton exposomics from observatory sites around the world might be used in the future to track and curb pollution that leads to human disease.
The Historical biomonitoring of pollution trends in the North Pacific using archived samples from the continuous plankton recorder survey has been published. The article is titled "Scitotenv.2022.161222".
Journal information: Science of the Total Environment
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