Engineered nanomaterials in plants: Sensors, carriers, and bio-imaging

Abstract

Abstract Plants are major contributors to the global food chain and provide ingredients such as carbohydrates, proteins, edible oils, dietary fibres, vitamins, minerals. They also provide us with, medicine, fabrics, building materials, biofuels, pulp, etc. Hence enhanced plant growth and health would directly contribute to the economy and development of nations. For this, a systematic understanding of plant biology is essential. From time to time plant biology has benefited immensely from various disciplines and platform technologies like genetics, breeding, microbiology and biotechnology, etc. Recently nanotechnology is contributing towards many discoveries in plant biology and utilization of plant resources. Nanomaterials (NM) are advantageous due to their characteristic dimension-based properties and amenability to real-time analyses with very low cost. They are used for monitoring plant metabolism and signalling pathways. NMs such as quantum dots (QD) serve as probes with unsurpassed accuracy. Engineered nanomaterials (ENM) have gained importance as bio-imaging agents, diagnostic tools for analysing plant pathogen interaction, nano-carriers for the delivery of genes and agrochemicals of interest. Here, we discuss the applications of ENMs in plant biology with respect to nutrient management, regulation of plant growth, gene detection and preservation, disease diagnostics and control. We also discuss the techniques for enhanced analyses and controlled delivery of functional/bioactive molecules and decreased cytotoxicity. We finally deliberate on emerging techniques associated with urban farming, precision agriculture, development of nanobionics.