Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were found to penetrate tomato seeds and affect their germination and growth rates. The germination was found to be dramatically higher for seeds that germinated on medium containing CNTs (10-40 mug/mL) compared to control. Analytical methods indicated that the CNTs are able to penetrate the thick seed coat and support water uptake inside seeds, a process which can affect seed germination and growth of tomato seedlings.

Understanding the nature of interactions between engineered nanomaterials and plants is crucial in comprehending the impact of nanotechnology on the environment and agriculture with a focus on toxicity concerns, plant disease treatment, and genetic engineering. To date, little progress has been made in studying nanoparticle-plant interactions at single nanoparticle and genetic levels. Here, we introduce an advanced platform integrating genetic, Raman, photothermal, and photoacoustic methods. Using this approach, we discovered that multiwall carbon nanotubes induce previously unknown changes in gene expression in tomato leaves and roots, particularly, up-regulation of the stress-related genes, including those induced by pathogens and the water-channel LeAqp2 gene. A nano-bubble amplified photothermal/photoacoustic imaging, spectroscopy, and burning technique demonstrated the detection of multiwall carbon nanotubes in roots, leaves, and fruits down to the single nanoparticle and cell level. Thus, our integrated platform allows the study of nanoparticles' impact on plants with higher sensitivity and specificity, compared to existing assays. (2) is one of the most intensely studied areas in nanotechnology. Nanoscale materials have been shown to be uptaken by tumor cells (3), bacteria (4), plant cells (5), and animal tissues (6). In particular, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with their unique structural and dimensional properties have been intensively studied for drug and gene delivery, tissue engineering, and other biomedical applications (7-9). It has also been shown that carbon nanotubes have the ability to penetrate plant cells (5) and induce phytotoxicity at high doses (10). We have demonstrated that single-wall CNTs at relatively low doses can penetrate even thick seed coats, stimulate germination, and activate enhanced growth of tomato plants (11). However, a thorough understanding of the effects induced by the nano-sized engineered materials on plant physiology at the molecular level is still lacking. In addition, the methods used for detecting such nanostructures in plant tissues are not well established and most of them are time consuming and labor intensive. Moreover, existing nanoparticle detection techniques usually decompose and destroy samples to prove the presence of nanomaterials; as a result, the same plant samples cannot be assessed for genomic/proteomic analysis. For example, the detection of magnetic nanoparticles in pumpkin plants by vibrating sample magnetometer requires drying and digestion of tissue samples with HNO 3 (12). Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) has been used to monitor the uptake and transportation of CNTs in rice (13), but it has few quantitative capabilities and may result in false positive interpretation because of considerable similarity in TEM images of CNTs and natural plant structures. Consequently, the analysis has to be combined with spectroscopic studies for the exact identification and assessment of the CNTs in the host plant tissue, and this requires the total destruct...

The transport of auxin controls developmental events in plants. Here, we report that in addition to maintaining vacuolar pH, the H+-pyrophosphatase, AVP1, controls auxin transport and consequently auxin-dependent development. AVP1 overexpression results in increased cell division at the onset of organ formation, hyperplasia, and increased auxin transport. In contrast, avp1-1 null mutants have severely disrupted root and shoot development and reduced auxin transport. Changes in the expression of AVP1 affect the distribution and abundance of the P-adenosine triphosphatase and Pinformed 1 auxin efflux facilitator, two proteins implicated in auxin distribution. Thus, AVP1 facilitates the auxin fluxes that regulate organogenesis.

Carbon nanotubes have shown promise as regulators of seed germination and plant growth. Here, we demonstrate that multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) have the ability to enhance the growth of tobacco cell culture (55-64% increase over control) in a wide range of concentrations (5-500 μg/mL). Activated carbon (AC) stimulated cell growth (16% increase) only at low concentrations (5 μg/mL) while dramatically inhibited the cellular growth at higher concentrations (100-500 μg/mL). We found a correlation between the activation of cells growth exposed to MWCNTs and the upregulation of genes involved in cell division/cell wall formation and water transport. The expression of the tobacco aquaporin (NtPIP1) gene, as well as production of the NtPIP1 protein, significantly increased in cells exposed to MWCNTs compared to control cells or those exposed to AC. The expression of marker genes for cell division (CycB) and cell wall extension (NtLRX1) was also up-regulated in cells exposed to MWCNTs compared to control cells or those exposed to activated carbon only.

Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) can affect plant phenotype and the composition of soil microbiota. Tomato plants grown in soil supplemented with CNTs produce two times more flowers and fruit compared to plants grown in control soil. The effect of carbon nanotubes on microbial community of CNT-treated soil is determined by denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis and pyrosequencing analysis. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that Proteobacteria and Bacteroidetes are the most dominant groups in the microbial community of soil. The relative abundances of Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes are found to increase, whereas Proteobacteria and Verrucomicorbia decrease with increasing concentration of CNTs. The results of comparing diversity indices and species level phylotypes (OTUs) between samples showed that there is not a significant affect on bacterial diversity.