ArticleScientific reports2021
Microplastics accumulate fungal pathogens in terrestrial ecosystems.
Article in Scientific reports, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 36 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
36 citing papers in PubMed.
- The aquatic plastisphere: ecology, pathogen dissemination and antimicrobial resistance.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2026Review
- The plastisphere: not a unique biofilm but a unifying concept for the interdisciplinary plastic biofilm research community.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2026Article
- Fungal diversity, ecology and functions in soil ecosystems.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2026Review
- Review
- Microplastics amplify the pro-inflammatory response to fungal mycelial fragments and spores in neutrophil-like cells.Frontiers in toxicology · 2026Article
- Microplastic impacts archaeal abundance, microbial communities, and their network connectivity in a Sub-Saharan soil environment.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2025Article
- The Presence of Micro- and Nanoplastics in Food and the Estimation of the Amount Consumed Depending on Dietary Patterns.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Global spillover of land-derived microbes to Ocean hosts: Sources, transmission pathways, and one health threats.Environmental science and ecotechnology · 2025Review
- Interactive Effect of Microplastics and Fungal PathogenPlants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Discrimination of Clinical and Food-DerivedPathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Thermotolerance, virulence, and drug resistance of human pathogenic Candida species colonising plastic pollution in aquatic ecosystems.Environmental science and pollution research international · 2025Article
- Article
- Fluconazole resistant pathogenic yeasts isolated from plastic debris on recreational public beaches in West and East Africa.Biologia · 2025Article
- Spatio-temporal distribution of soil microbial communities and nutrient availability around a municipal solid waste landfill.Frontiers in microbiology · 2025Article
- Microplastics: Omnipresent and an ongoing challenge for medical science.Wiener klinische Wochenschrift · 2025Article
- Factors Influencing the Vertical Migration of Microplastics up and down the Soil Profile.ACS omega · 2024Review
- Feels Like Home: A Biobased and Biodegradable Plastic Offers a Novel Habitat for Diverse Plant Pathogenic Fungi in Temperate Forest Ecosystems.Microbial ecology · 2024Article
- From Corn Starch to Nanostructured Magnetic Laser-Induced Graphene Nanocomposite.Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) · 2024Article
- Microplastics in the Human Body: Exposure, Detection, and Risk of Carcinogenesis: A State-of-the-Art Review.Cancers · 2024Review
- Microplastic and Nanoplastic in Crops: Possible Adverse Effects to Crop Production and Contaminant Transfer in the Food Chain.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Microplastic (MP) is a pervasive pollutant in nature that is colonised by diverse groups of microbes, including potentially pathogenic species. Fungi have been largely neglected in this context, despite their affinity for plastics and their impact as pathogens. To unravel the role of MP as a carrier of fungal pathogens in terrestrial ecosystems and the immediate human environment, epiplastic mycobiomes from municipal plastic waste from Kenya were deciphered using ITS metabarcoding as well as a comprehensive meta-analysis, and visualised via scanning electron as well as confocal laser scanning microscopy. Metagenomic and microscopic findings provided complementary evidence that the terrestrial plastisphere is a suitable ecological niche for a variety of fungal organisms, including important animal and plant pathogens, which formed the plastisphere core mycobiome. We show that MPs serve as selective artificial microhabitats that not only attract distinct fungal communities, but also accumulate certain opportunistic human pathogens, such as cryptococcal and Phoma-like species. Therefore, MP must be regarded a persistent reservoir and potential vector for fungal pathogens in soil environments. Given the increasing amount of plastic waste in terrestrial ecosystems worldwide, this interrelation may have severe consequences for the trans-kingdom and multi-organismal epidemiology of fungal infections on a global scale.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.