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Conventional metrics such as water or serum concentration, total chemical burden, particle count, and microbiome composition remain essential for exposure description, but they do not identify the fraction that reached a biological interface, its physicochemical state, its residence time, or the scale of the resulting response. Published evidence shows that PFAS sorption varies with particle and environmental properties, that biological coatings can modify MNP surfaces, and that microbes can respond to or accumulate exposure-relevant fluorinated chemistry. The strongest integrated evidence currently comes from gastrointestinal systems; extension of the same logic to other exposure routes remains to be tested. This Critical Perspective proposes 2 complementary interpretive constructs. Contact dose at a living interface describes what reached a biologically active boundary or compartment in an available or retained state. Perturbation scale places the resulting response against background variation, adaptive stress, early injury, disease-relevant biology, or a recognized toxicological insult. These constructs are intended to complement, not replace, conventional exposure metrics. A claim-aligned research agenda should connect chemical and particle exposure state with biological desorption, interface contact, microbial exposure fate, coherent host-response pathways, and endpoint-matched comparators. Adoption of this approach could improve the consistency, comparability, and biological interpretation of PFAS\u2013MNP\u2013microbiome studies.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1093\/etojnl\/vgag246","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,10]],"date-time":"2026-09-10T04:43:26Z","timestamp":1789015406000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["What biology receives: Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, microplastics, and contact dose at living interfaces"],"prefix":"10.1093","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0009-3542-5125","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Rebecca","family":"Lewandowski","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of Arizona , Tucson, AZ,","place":["United States"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,9]]},"reference":[{"key":"2026092423170906500_vgag246-B1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"e40490","DOI":"10.1016\/j.heliyon.2024.e40490","article-title":"Insight into the effect of natural aging of polystyrene microplastics on the sorption of legacy and emerging per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances in seawater","volume":"10","author":"Barhoumi","year":"2024","journal-title":"Heliyon"},{"key":"2026092423170906500_vgag246-B2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"8877","DOI":"10.1021\/acs.est.1c02012","article-title":"Biofilms enhance the adsorption of toxic contaminants on plastic microfibers under environmentally relevant conditions","volume":"55","author":"Bhagwat","year":"2021","journal-title":"Environmental Science & Technology"},{"key":"2026092423170906500_vgag246-B3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1395401","DOI":"10.3389\/fmicb.2024.1395401","article-title":"Freshwater plastisphere: A review on biodiversity, risks, and biodegradation potential with implications for the aquatic ecosystem health","volume":"15","author":"Bocci","year":"2024","journal-title":"Frontiers in Microbiology"},{"key":"2026092423170906500_vgag246-B4","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"12","DOI":"10.1186\/s43591-024-00090-w","article-title":"Quantitation of micro and nanoplastics in human blood by pyrolysis-gas chromatography\u2013mass spectrometry","volume":"4","author":"Brits","year":"2024","journal-title":"Microplastics and Nanoplastics"},{"key":"2026092423170906500_vgag246-B5","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"55","DOI":"10.1186\/s12989-022-00492-9","article-title":"Coronas of micro\/nano plastics: A key determinant in their risk assessments","volume":"19","author":"Cao","year":"2022","journal-title":"Particle and Fibre Toxicology"},{"key":"2026092423170906500_vgag246-B6","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"e04970","DOI":"10.2903\/j.efsa.2017.4970","article-title":"Guidance on the assessment of the biological relevance of data in scientific assessments","volume":"15","author":"European Food Safety Authority Scientific Committee","year":"2017","journal-title":"EFSA Journal"},{"key":"2026092423170906500_vgag246-B7","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"7951","DOI":"10.1021\/acs.jpcb.5c02472","article-title":"Biophysical consequences for exposure of model cell membranes to perfluoroalkyl substances","volume":"129","author":"Fosella","year":"2025","journal-title":"The Journal of Physical Chemistry. 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