Challenges in assessing ecological and health risks of microplastics and nanoplastics: tracking their dynamics in living organisms

Tracking the movement and transformation of micro- and nano-plastics (MNPs) in living organisms presents a fundamental challenge in evaluating health risks. While existing methods can identify and quantify MNPs, they rely on destructive sampling and provide only static snapshots, thereby failing to capture the real-time particle dynamics within biological systems. To overcome this limitation, a 'fluorescent monomer-controlled synthesis' strategy is proposed to prepare MNPs with regulable morphology and fluorescence properties, achieving uniform, stable, and continuous imaging even in complex biological environments. This method involves engineering specialized plastic monomers with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) properties, and polymerizing MNPs with built-in fluorescence. This design strategy with evenly dispersed fluorescence probes is expected to avoid signal loss or instability and enable direct observation of the complete lifecycle of MNPs, deepening our understanding of their toxicological mechanisms.