“…Nanotechnology-based methods have been used to deliver biomolecules and chemicals into cells in both plant and mammalian cell systems (Chang et al, 2013;Wang et al, 2014;Mahakham et al, 2017;Fortuni et al, 2019); however, compared with the mammalian cell delivery process, NP-mediated plant biomolecule delivery has proven to be more challenging because of the presence of the natural barrier provided by the cell wall (Mao et al, 2019). It has been suggested that the use of NPs enables an efficient plant transformation because NPs protect the genetic cargo from cellular enzymatic degradation (e.g., nucleases; Finiuk et al, 2017;Joldersma and Liu, 2018 (Bates and Kostarelos, 2013;Karimi et al, 2015), but metallic NPs can only deliver DNA as genetic cargo (Zhao et al, 2017). In addition, silicon-based NPs can carry DNA and proteins, whereas polymeric NPs (e.g., PEG and polyethyleneimine) can transfer encapsulated RNA, DNA, and proteins into cells (Silva et al, 2010;Moon et al, 2011;Su et al, 2011;Hasanzadeh Kafshgari et al, 2015;Zhou et al, 2018).…”