Anna Dorsch

• The challenge of environmental plastic pollution will increase in the upcoming decades, leaving no habitat, and therefore, no organism unaffected. Over time and by different environmental forces, large plastic waste debris can degrade into small polymer particles, which contaminates the food chain and inevitably ends up in apex species, like humans. However, it remains to be elucidated if the human organism is affected by polymer ingestion or if it has no effect on humans. As particles most likely interact with different biomolecules in the environment, like lipids, proteins or even toxins, they are consequently transported and altered along the food chain, ending up in humans. With this, different molecules foreign to the organism can enter the human body and probably cause damage depending on the molecule. To gain insight in the dynamics and formation of lipid and protein coronas around model polystyrene particles and their biological effect, this thesis investigated the interaction of an artificial liposome-/ (Article 1) and human saliva protein (Article 2) model with commercially available polystyrene particles. In order to mimic different variations of particle surfaces, the manufactural available particles were either without modification (pristine), aminated or carboxylated and different sizes were investigated. In Article 3, a novel protocol was introduced to produce PET particles from bulk material by sonication with an investigation of the biological effect resulting from heterogenous PET particles.