Abstract
Classical plant uptake is limited to hydrophilic or water-dispersible material. Therefore, in order to test the uptake behaviour of hydrophobic particles, here, we tested the fate of hydrophobic particles (oleylamine coated Cu2-xSe NPs (CS@OA)) in comparison to hydrophilic particles (chitosan-coated Cu2-xSe NPs (CS@CH)) by treatment on the plant roots. Surprisingly, hydrophobic CS@OA NPs have been found to be ~ 1.3 times more efficient than hydrophilic CS@CH NPs in tomato plant root penetration. An atomic force microscopy (AFM) adhesion force experiment confirms that hydrophobic NPs experience non-spontaneous yet energetically favorable root trapping and penetration. Further, a relative difference in the hydrophobic vs. hydrophilic NPs movement from roots to shoots has been observed and found related to the change in protein corona as identified by two dimensional-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (2D-PAGE) analysis. Finally, the toxicity assays at the give concentration showed that Cu2-xSe NPs lead to non-significant toxicity as compared to control. This technology may find an advantage in fertilizer application.
Highlights
Plants have evolved slowly through natural selection processes, which have been rapidly increased by biotechnology for human requirements[1]
To study the effects of NPs surface polarity on plant uptake, as-prepared hydrophobic Cu2-xSe NPs with oleylamine coating and hydrophilic Cu2-xSe NPs with chitosan coating were tested against the model plant viz., tomato
The X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern of the as-prepared oleylamine coated Cu2-xSe NPs (Fig. 1A) shows diffraction peaks at 26.77, 44.72, 53.03, and 65.27° that match the (111), (220), (311), and (400) planes of face-centred-cubic C u2-xSe (JCPDS 06-0680)
Summary
Plants have evolved slowly through natural selection processes, which have been rapidly increased by biotechnology for human requirements[1]. We envisage that a similar forced injection method in a large-scale may be feasible by having hydrophobic surface modification Both theoretically and experimentally, hydrophobicity in combination with mildly hydrophilic groups was found to show excellent adhesion of water drop even with a tilt of 180°30–34. By hydrophobicity, motivated us to test the plant uptake efficiency between hydrophobic vs hydrophilic NPs. Recently, many statistical surveys have reported the global value of vertical farming in 2018 as $2.23 billion and in 2026 it is expected to be $12.77 billion, which emphasizes the practical importance of this study for agro-industry. Many statistical surveys have reported the global value of vertical farming in 2018 as $2.23 billion and in 2026 it is expected to be $12.77 billion, which emphasizes the practical importance of this study for agro-industry For this comparison, intensely fluorescent Cu2-XSe NPs were used, which are non-toxic, unlike cadmium particles. To our knowledge for the first time, force-distance measurements has been conducted using AFM with the NPs modified tips against a root to understand the adhesion dependence
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