Nanotechnology Used in Plant Biology

U.S. scientists have used nanotechnology to penetrate plant cell walls, delivering a gene and a chemical to precisely trigger the gene’s expression.

The team of Iowa State University researchers said their breakthrough brings nanotechnology to plant biology and agricultural biotechnology, creating a powerful tool for targeted delivery into plant cells.

Currently, scientists can successfully introduce a gene into a plant cell. In a separate process, chemicals are used to activate the gene’s function. But the process is imprecise and the chemicals could be toxic to the plant.

With the mesoporous nanoparticles, we can deliver two biogenic species at the same time, study leader Professor Kan Wang said. We can bring in a gene and induce it in a controlled manner at the same time and at the same location. That’s never been done before.

The study — involving Wang, professor Victor Lin, Brian Trewyn, assistant scientist in chemistry and Francois Torney, formerly a post-doctoral fellow now a scientist with Biogemma in France — appears in the May issue of Nature Nanotechnology.