Delivery of small interfering RNA (siRNA) to intact plants for gene silencing mainly relies on viral vectors and Agrobacterium-mediated transformation due to the barrier of intact plant cell wall. Here, we reported that polymer functionalized graphene oxide nanoparticles (GONs) enable siRNA transfer into intact plant cells and bring about efficient gene silencing. We found that sheeted GONs could efficiently load siRNA to form small sized, near-spheroidal GONs-siRNA complex, which could be across the cell wall and internalize in the plant cell. The GONs-siRNA exhibited transient and strong silencing (97.2 % efficiency) in plant tissues at 24 h after treatment and returned to normal level at 5 days after treatment. This method has the obvious advantages of efficient, transient, simple, stability and well biocompatibility, which should greatly stimulate the application of nanomaterials as geneengineering tools in plant research.

Infection with Helicobacter pylori (Hp) is one of the leading causes of stomach cancer. The ability to treat Hp infection is hampered by a lack of stomach gastric acid environment. This work introduces a nanoliposome that can rapidly adjust the gastric acid environment to ensure a drug's optimal efficacy. We introduce CaCO 3 @Fe−TP@EggPC nanoliposomes (CTE NLs) that are composed of Fe 3+ and tea polyphenols (TPs) forming complexes on the surface of internal CaCO 3 and then with lecithin producing a phospholipid bilayer on the polyphenols' outer surface. Through the action of iron−TP chelate, the phospholipid layer can fuse with the bacterial membrane to eliminate Hp. Furthermore, CaCO 3 can promptly consume the excessive gastric acid, ensuring an ideal operating environment for the chelate. TPs, on the other hand, can improve the inflammation and gut microbes in the body. The experimental results show that CTE NLs can quickly consume protons in the stomach and reduce the bacterial burden by 1.2 orders of magnitude while reducing the inflammatory factors in the body. The biosafety evaluation revealed that nanoliposomes have good biocompatibility and provide a new strategy for treating Hp infection.

No abstract

Delivery of small interfering RNA (siRNA) to intact plants for gene silencing mainly relies on viral vectors and Agrobacterium-mediated transformation due to the barrier of intact plant cell wall. Here, we reported that polymer functionalized graphene oxide nanoparticles (GONs) enable siRNA transfer into intact plant cells and bring about efficient gene silencing. We found that sheeted GONs could efficiently load siRNA to form small sized, near-spheroidal GONs-siRNA complex, which could be across the cell wall and internalize in the plant cell. The GONs-siRNA exhibited transient and strong silencing (97.2 % efficiency) in plant tissues at 24 h after treatment and returned to normal level at 5 days after treatment. This method has the obvious advantages of efficient, transient, simple, stability and well biocompatibility, which should greatly stimulate the application of nanomaterials as geneengineering tools in plant research.

Delivery and expression of exogenous plasmid DNA (pDNA) into mature plants for plant genetic engineering mainly rely on Agrobacterium-mediated transformation and biolistic bombardment. Meanwhile, the process of pDNA entering the nucleus via traditional methods is random and there is no nuclear targeting effect. Here, we reported a dual-peptide-based gene delivery system to achieve nuclear delivery of exogenous pDNA in mature plants. This system is a combination of engineered peptides composed of nuclear location signal (NLS) fusion with the DNA binding domain (KH) 9 and cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs), which could bind pDNA to form a sphere-like CPP-NLS (KH) -pDNA nanocomplex. We found that this system could overcome barriers of the nuclear pore complexes (NPCs) and deliver exogenous pDNA entering the nucleus efficiently. Besides, we demonstrated that the CPP-NLS (KH) -pDNA nanocomplex could efficiently cross the rigid plant cell wall into the nucleus at 24 h after treatment and bring about a transient expression in plant suspension cells and living plants 3 days after treatment. This strategy has obvious advantages of good biocompatibility, nongenomic integration, and nonspecies limitation and shows the potential of NLS peptides as gene carriers, which would provide a delivery tool to complement preset methods serving plant genetic engineering.