Nitroaromatic detection and infrared communication from wild-type plants using plant nanobionics

Abstract

Plant nanobionics aims to embed non-native functions to plants by interfacing them with specifically designed nanoparticles. Here, we demonstrate that living spinach plants (Spinacia oleracea) can be engineered to serve as self-powered pre-concentrators and autosamplers of analytes in ambient groundwater and as infrared communication platforms that can send information to a smartphone. The plants employ a pair of near-infrared fluorescent nanosensors-single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) conjugated to the peptide Bombolitin II to recognize nitroaromatics via infrared fluorescent emission, and polyvinyl-alcohol functionalized SWCNTs that act as an invariant reference signal-embedded within the plant leaf mesophyll. As contaminant nitroaromatics are transported up the roots and stem into leaf tissues, they accumulate in the mesophyll, resulting in relative changes in emission intensity. The real-time monitoring of embedded SWCNT sensors also allows residence times in the roots, stems and leaves to be estimated, calculated to be 8.3 min (combined residence times of root and stem) and 1.9 min mm leaf, respectively. These results demonstrate the ability of living, wild-type plants to function as chemical monitors of groundwater and communication devices to external electronics at standoff distances.

In Vivo Delivery of Nanoparticles into Plant Leaves

“…Leaf lamina infiltration of biological and chemical solutions through stomatal pores is a commonly used technique in plant biology research (Mousavi, Chauvin, Pascaud, Kellenberger, & Farmer, 2013;Sparkes, Runions, Kearns, & Hawes, 2006;Wroblewski, Tomczak, & Michelmore, 2005). Leaf lamina infiltration is also a practical and efficient way to deliver nanoparticles directly into leaves of living plants (Giraldo et al, 2014(Giraldo et al, , 2015Wong et al, 2016).…”

“…Multi-walled carbon nanotubes increase growth of tobacco cell culture (Khodakovskaya, de Silva, Biris, Dervishi, & Villagarcia, 2012), flowers, and fruit production (Khodakovskaya et al, 2013). Recently, using a plant nanobionic approach, nanoparticles augmented or imparted novel functions to plants (Giraldo et al, 2014;Wong et al, 2016). Recently, using a plant nanobionic approach, nanoparticles augmented or imparted novel functions to plants (Giraldo et al, 2014;Wong et al, 2016).…”

“…Recently, using a plant nanobionic approach, nanoparticles augmented or imparted novel functions to plants (Giraldo et al, 2014;Wong et al, 2016). Embedding single walled carbon nanotube based sensors into spinach plants transforms them into detectors of explosives or pollutants in the environment that communicate the presence of an analyte to electronic devices in real-time (Wong et al, 2016). Embedding single walled carbon nanotube based sensors into spinach plants transforms them into detectors of explosives or pollutants in the environment that communicate the presence of an analyte to electronic devices in real-time (Wong et al, 2016).…”

“…In contrast, silver nanoparticles inhibit photosystem II (PSII) function in Arabidopsis (Sosan et al, 2016); zinc oxide and copper oxide nanoparticles reduce the net rate of photosynthesis and leaf stomatal conductance in Arabidopsis (Wang et al, 2016) and rice plants (Da Costa & Sharma, 2016), respectively. Recently, using a plant nanobionic approach, nanoparticles augmented or imparted novel functions to plants (Giraldo et al, 2014;Wong et al, 2016). Giraldo et al (2014) found that interfacing DNA coated single walled carbon nanotubes with chloroplasts enhances electron transport rates both ex vivo and in vivo.…”

Review—Progress toward Applications of Carbon Nanotube Photoluminescence

“…Advancements in optical techniques have now led to surgical guidance 56 and through-skull imaging 21 in live mice. In parallel, the use of carbon nanotubes as optical sensors 57 was extended to the measurement of strain in composites 58 , multimodal optical sensing in live cells 59 , and measurements in live plants 60 . Excitingly, SWCNT optical sensors were also shown to function in live mice for over 400 days 61 .…”