Initial Assessment the Effects of Polyethylene Microplastics on the Growth of Zebrafish Embryos Danio rerio

The aim of this study to evaluate the effect of polyethylene (PE) microplastics to mortality rates and morphological changes of zebrafish (Danio rerio) embryos by determining the mortality ratio of embryos and changes in embryo morphological structure after 24, 48, 72 and 96 h of exposure. Zebrafish were obtained from the Faculty of Biology - Hanoi University of Science. 24-hour-old fish embryos were exposed to PE microplastic concentrations of 5; 10; 20; 50 and 100 µg/mL. The results showed that when exposed to microplastics at concentrations of 10 µg/mL or higher, only about 5-10% of mortality embryos and the ratio did not increase with increasing concentration. These embryos died in the first 24 h and the number of dead embryos did not increase throughout the experiment. A similar trend was also observed when evaluating the ratio of morphologically abnormal embryos, embryos with abnormal pericardial edema were observed throughout the experiment at the highest concentration of 100 µg/mL. The results showed the potential risk in the using plastic products for the ecological environment.