Abstract
More sustainable agricultural practices are critical to meeting humanity's food needs while minimizing adverse environmental impacts. Engineered nanomaterials used as nanocarriers promise to reduce the volume of agrochemicals required for crop production but concerns about nanocontamination of agricultural products necessitate the discovery of naturally occurring alternatives. Here, plant-derived cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) as a “green” alternative to man-made nanomaterials for the economical delivery of agrochemicals to plants are suggested. Using confocal microscopy and fluorescently labeled CNC, it is demonstrated that CNC can successfully penetrate the plant cell wall and enter cells without causing any negative effects on the overall plant phenotype, genome, and metabolome. The efficiency of CNC to deliver chemicals is demonstrated through in vitro tests involving CNC covalently conjugated with 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D). Plant cell culture experiments confirmed that CNC can be used as a 2,4-D nanocarrier and reduces the volume of plant growth regulators needed to cultivate plant cells. This work creates a new platform for cyclical agricultural practices where CNC extracted from agricultural waste can be used for the direct delivery of agrochemicals to crops, thereby reducing the environmental burden created by both agricultural waste and excess herbicides.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 2300511 |
Journal | Advanced Sustainable Systems |
Volume | 8 |
Issue number | 5 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - May 2024 |
Funding
This work was supported by USDA-NIFA (ARFI 2020\u201304096 \u2013 Award to MVK and VAD). Infrastructure for the metabolomics study was created using funds of NSF-EPSCoR grant 1826836 (Co-PI is MVK). Authors thank Novogene, Co., Ltd. For analysis of plant samples by RNA-seq. The authors are grateful to UAMS Digital Microscopy Core Laboratory and personally to J. Kamykowski for providing access to UAMS confocal microscopy and kind assistance in analyses of generated images. The authors also thank U.M. Nori for preliminary work on fluorescent tagging of CNC. Optical characterization of samples was conducted as part of a user project at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS), which is a US Department of Energy, Office of Science User Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. This work was supported by USDA\u2010NIFA (ARFI 2020\u201304096 \u2013 Award to MVK and VAD). Infrastructure for the metabolomics study was created using funds of NSF\u2010EPSCoR grant 1826836 (Co\u2010PI is MVK). Authors thank Novogene, Co., Ltd. For analysis of plant samples by RNA\u2010seq. The authors are grateful to UAMS Digital Microscopy Core Laboratory and personally to J. Kamykowski for providing access to UAMS confocal microscopy and kind assistance in analyses of generated images. The authors also thank U.M. Nori for preliminary work on fluorescent tagging of CNC. Optical characterization of samples was conducted as part of a user project at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS), which is a US Department of Energy, Office of Science User Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Keywords
- agriculture
- cellulose nanocrystals
- nanocarriers
- natural polymers
- plant uptake
- polymeric nanoparticles
- sustainability