Bio: Professor Fang Xiao is a doctoral supervisor, and vice dean of Xiangya School of Public Health, Central South University. Her main research direction is the health risk and toxicity mechanism of emerging environmental pollutants, and she has presided more than 20 scientific research projects such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China. As a correspondent, she has published more than 50 SCI papers in high-level magazines in recent five years. She was awarded the Hunan Outstanding Youth Fund, won the Hunan Natural Science Award as the first finisher, and was authorized seven invention patents as the first inventor. She founded WeChat official account "Poisons in Life", with tens of thousands of fans.

Abstract: Microplastics (MPs) pollution is becoming a significant environmental and public health issue. Cholestatic liver disease (CLD) is closely related to intestinal homeostasis, but there are no data investigating the effects of MPs on CLD. We used Mdr2-/- mice (a model of CLD) to investigate the effects of polystyrene microplastics (PS-MPs) on CLD. Our data revealed that, compared with Mdr2-/- mice, PS-MPs-challenged Mdr2-/- mice presented more severe collagen deposition, infiltration of inflammatory cells in liver sections and higher alkaline phosphatase (ALP) concentrations. Furthermore, the number of mucous cells in colonic tissues of mice with CLD was strongly inhibited by PS-MPs, accompanied by the down-regulation of intestinal tight junction proteins. We also revealed PS-MPs accelerated NLRP3-associated inflammatory response in the colon but did not affect NLRP3 expression in the livers of Mdr2-/- mice. The inhibition of NLRP3 by the MCC950 inhibitor abrogated the exacerbating effects of PS-MPs on hepatobiliary injury and intestinal barrier integrity damage. These findings suggest NLRP3-mediated inflammation is an important participant in intestinal barrier integrity damage crosstalk that drives CLD under MPs exposure and identify NLRP3 as a potential therapeutic target.