Abstract
Plant seedlings were exposed to single-walled carbon nanotube–quantum dot conjugates(SWCNT–QD) mixed in the growth medium in order to understand the interactionsbetween these multicomponent nanosystems and plants. A combination of fluorescent andRaman-scattering 2D mapping analysis was used to clearly monitor the presence of theSWCNT–QD conjugates in various parts of the tomato seedlings. We found that theaddition of QDs to SWCNTs dramatically changed the biological viability of the tomatoplants by significantly accelerating leaf senescence and inhibiting root formation.Although the exposure of SWCNTs only to the plants induced positive effects, thechlorophyll content decreased by 1.5-fold in leaves, and the total weight of the rootsystem decreased four times for the tomato plants exposed to SWCNT–QDs (50 µg ml − 1) compared to plants grown on regular medium as controls. Our results clearly indicatethat the exposure of plants to multicomponent nanomaterials is highly influencedby the presence and bioactivity of each component, individually. Such studiescould be the foundation for understanding how complex nanosized systems affectthe activity of various biological systems with a major impact on ecotoxicology.
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