Microplastics, Pharmaceuticals, and Emerging Pollutants: Impacts on Aquatic Ecosystems and Environmental Health

Dear Colleagues,

The emergence and spread of the microplastics is one of the most urgent threats to biota, including humans. Microplastics can trigger physical injuries when ingested as well as be carriers of xenobiotics due to their extraordinary sorption ability. Understanding the fate and transport of plastic items and their ability to cross internal barriers in various specimens is crucial for ecotoxicological studies. The current challenges in environmental studies concern also the assessment of pharmaceuticals and other emerging pollutants, which released to aquatic environments even in trace concentrations can trigger serious impacts due to the chronic effects.

This Special Issue focuses on the environmental fate, transport, and biological translocation of microplastics and co-occurring emerging pollutants in aquatic species. Particular emphasis is placed on cross-compartment transfer, pollutant-particle interactions, and movement of contaminants from aquatic environment into organisms and across biological barriers. By integrating monitoring, ecotoxicology, and predictive modelling, this Special Issue aims to advance system-level understanding of contaminant mobility and exposure pathways.

Topics may include, but are not limited, to the following:

1. Field studies characterizing microplastics and particle-bound pollutants at the water-sediment interface are encouraged if they link to biological uptake by directly addressing bioavailability, organismal uptake, or transfer across external biological surfaces such as gills or digestive epithelia.
2. Research investigating the uptake and internal translocation of microplastics and associated contaminants within aquatic organisms with emphasis on transport across physiological barriers such as intestinal, branchial, reproductive, embryonic, and blood–tissue barriers, as well as organ-specific distribution.
3. Studies evaluating the absorption, distribution, biotransformation, sequestration, and depuration of plastic leachates and desorbed chemicals in aquatic species are welcome, especially where pollutant–particle interactions that alter internal exposure and toxicity profiles are shown.
4. Studies on trophic transfer are encouraged, particularly when they resolve how particle-bound contaminants move from prey to predator and subsequently redistribute across tissues or organs, rather than describing broad food-web occurrence alone.
5. Risk-assessment studies are invited where they are based on measured or modelled internal doses, barrier-crossing behaviour, organ burdens, or biologically effective exposure, rather than broad ecological surveys of environmental presence.
6. Predictive modelling of organism-level translocation and toxicokinetics modelling studies should focus on uptake kinetics, organ partitioning, barrier permeability, depuration, and biologically based transport of particle-associated contaminants within aquatic organisms, rather than general environmental transport modelling across ecosystems.

Prof. Dr. Aleksander Astel
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Toxics is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• microplastics
• morphological features of plastic items
• quantification of microplastics
• pharmaceuticals
• emerging pollutants
• acute and chronic toxicity