{"id":244659,"date":"2026-09-30T01:29:23","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T06:29:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/microplastics-clog-liver-immune-cells-driving-fat-buildup-in-mice"},"modified":"2026-09-30T01:29:23","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T06:29:23","slug":"microplastics-clog-liver-immune-cells-driving-fat-buildup-in-mice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/microplastics-clog-liver-immune-cells-driving-fat-buildup-in-mice","title":{"rendered":"Microplastics clog liver immune cells, driving fat buildup in mice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/microplastics-clog-liver-immune-cells-driving-fat-buildup-in-mice.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Microplastics appear capable of significantly impairing the function of phagocytes in the liver, at least in mice. In turn, this disrupts the metabolism of this vital organ and increases the build-up of fat inside it. These key findings from a joint German-Austrian study led by the University of Bonn, have now been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s42255-026-01615-8\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in the journal Nature Metabolism.<\/p>\n<p>Phagocytes, literally \u201ceating cells,\u201d or \u201cmacrophages\u201d to give them their scientific name, are immune cells that reside in virtually every organ of the body. They play an important protective role, looking out for bacteria, diseased cells and foreign matter, engulfing them and breaking them down into their component parts. In addition, they help the organs they live in function properly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrom working with cell cultures, we\u2019ve known for several years that macrophages also take up microplastics,\u201d explains Professor Elvira Mass from the LIMES Institute at the University of Bonn. \u201cWe wanted to know whether that\u2019s also the case in a living organism and, if so, what effect it has.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Microplastics appear capable of significantly impairing the function of phagocytes in the liver, at least in mice. In turn, this disrupts the metabolism of this vital organ and increases the build-up of fat inside it. These key findings from a joint German-Austrian study led by the University of Bonn, have now been published in the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1506],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-food"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244659\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}