Kimchi Bacteria and Nanoplastics: What the 2026 Study Found

Can kimchi bacteria help remove nanoplastics? A 2026 study from the World Institute of Kimchi in Korea found that one strain of a kimchi bacterium, Leuconostoc mesenteroides CBA3656, binds tiny plastic particles in the lab and increased how many were excreted by mice. It is early research: nothing has been tested in people yet.

Here's what the scientists did, what they found, and why the details matter.

What are nanoplastics?

Nanoplastics are fragments of plastic so small they are measured in nanometres, billionths of a metre. They form when larger plastics break down. In 2016, the European Food Safety Authority noted that, unlike microplastics, there were no methods or occurrence data yet for nanoplastics in food, and that data for a human risk assessment were lacking (EFSA, 2016). Research has grown fast since, but many questions remain open.

The study in short

The paper, "Efficient biosorption of nanoplastics by food-derived lactic acid bacterium", was published in Bioresource Technology in 2026 by Jisu Lee, Se Hee Lee, Tae Woong Whon and colleagues (Lee et al., 2026).

The team compared two lactic acid bacteria isolated from kimchi: Leuconostoc mesenteroides CBA3656 and a reference strain, Latilactobacillus sakei CBA3608. They tested how well each one binds polystyrene nanoplastics, first in the lab, then in mice.

Test	L. mesenteroides CBA3656	L. sakei CBA3608
Binding in standard lab conditions	87%	85%
Binding in simulated intestinal conditions	57%	3%
Germ-free mice	More than twice as many nanoplastics excreted than mice without the bacterium	Not reported in the press release

Sources: Lee et al., 2026 and the institute's press release.

The striking result is the second line: in conditions that imitate the gut, the reference strain almost stopped binding, while CBA3656 kept more than half of its capacity.

What the study does not show

• It is one strain, not a species. Bacteria of the same species can behave very differently. The result applies to CBA3656, a strain the team isolated and selected.

• It is lab and mouse work. The mice were germ-free, meaning they had no gut microbes of their own, which is very different from a person.

• It tested one plastic. Only polystyrene nanoplastics were used.

• Excretion is not the same as a health effect. More particles leaving the body in mice does not yet tell us anything about health in people. The researchers themselves describe it as something that "may contribute" to excretion.

In other words: an interesting lead for science, not a reason to change what you eat.

Is Leuconostoc mesenteroides found in kimchi?

Yes. Leuconostoc mesenteroides is one of the classic bacteria of kimchi fermentation. When researchers sequenced the microbes of kimchi, they found the community dominated by Leuconostoc, Lactobacillus and Weissella, with many sequences closely matching L. mesenteroides (Jung et al., 2011). It is an early-stage fermenter: it starts acidifying the vegetables and makes way for the bacteria that follow.

But finding the species in a jar of kimchi does not mean finding the strain from the study. Standard tests identify the species, not the strain, and the strain is what made the difference.

What we found in our own kimchi

Curious about what lives in our jars, we had a batch of our Kimchi with Parsnip analysed by Kultured, a lab that profiles the bacteria in fermented foods with 16S DNA sequencing. The sample was taken on 26 January 2026 and the report came back in March 2026.

Bacteria in our Kimchi with Parsnip, as a share of bacterial DNA reads. Batch of 26 January 2026, 16S sequencing by Kultured. Values other than L. plantarum are read from the report's chart and are approximate.

• Lactobacillus plantarum is the dominant species, at 77.1% of the community.

• 95.4% of the reads belong to core fermentation bacteria: the lactic acid bacteria that lower the pH and preserve the vegetables.

• Leuconostoc mesenteroides, the species studied by the World Institute of Kimchi, is the third most abundant species, at about 5.8%.

What this does and doesn't tell us: 16S sequencing identifies species, not strains, so we can't say whether CBA3656, or a strain with the same ability, is in our kimchi. It's also one batch, a snapshot of its microbes, not a test of any effect on nanoplastics or on health. We simply found it fascinating to see the science in our own jars.

Why researchers are interested

Food-grade bacteria are attractive candidates for this kind of research because people already eat them every day. If future studies confirm the effect in humans, strains like CBA3656 could be developed further. Until then, the honest answer is: we don't know yet.

FAQ

Does eating kimchi remove nanoplastics from the body?

There is no evidence for that in people. The study tested one isolated strain, in the lab and in germ-free mice.

Is the CBA3656 strain in all kimchi?

There's no way to know from a label. The species is common in kimchi, but strains vary from batch to batch and from producer to producer.

Where do nanoplastics come from?

They come from larger plastics breaking down over time, through wear, heat and light. EFSA has pointed out that data on nanoplastics in food are still lacking.

Will there be human studies?

Possibly. Animal results usually come before human trials, and many promising findings change once tested in people.

Sources

• Lee J et al. (2026). Efficient biosorption of nanoplastics by food-derived lactic acid bacterium. Bioresource Technology 447: 134234.

• World Institute of Kimchi, press release via EurekAlert, March 2026.

• Jung JY et al. (2011). Metagenomic analysis of kimchi, a traditional Korean fermented food. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 77(7): 2264 to 2274.

• EFSA Panel on Contaminants in the Food Chain (2016). Presence of microplastics and nanoplastics in food, with particular focus on seafood. EFSA Journal 14(6): 4501.

Curious about the microbes behind kimchi? Read our complete guide to kimchi and the gut microbiome: a user's manual.