Plants in their physical environment face various types of abiotic stresses such as high salinity, drought, saturation, high temperature, cold, heavy metals, and biotic stress such as pest and pathogens. The abiotic stresses characterize the main cause of crop fiasco globally, contributing to more than 50% of the average loss for significant crops. Developing tolerant cultivars using genetic manipulation is the most important strategy currently to cope with these stresses; however, the overall progress is slow and complete success is not yet achieved due to the difficulty in identifying key genetic determinants of stress tolerance. A complementary approach is the use of nanotechnology to promote plant growth by mitigating stress-induced signalling pathways, and thus increase crop yields, although its full potential has not yet been discovered and the underlying mechanisms by which NMs enhance seed germination, provide resistance to pathogens and more are not yet fully understood which hampers its progress and widespread adoption. Recently, we used nano-CeO2 and nano-MoS2 to protect plants against various stress conditions, taking advantage of their capacity to scavenge reactive oxygen species (ROS), which are the major cause of cell death in plants under stress conditions. Our results showed that both nano-CeO2 and nano-MoS2 showed protective effects and such effects can be modulated or enhanced by modifying the physicochemical properties of the nanomaterials. We believe that nano-enabled solutions could provide simple and robust strategies to improve plant resistance to environmental stress because they are based on mechanisms that relies on the materials, which is distinct from genetic-based mechanisms that are highly affected by plant species and other environmental conditions.

Nano-enabled strategies to enhance plant tolerance to climate stress

ACS Spring 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.