Metabolomics as a Tool to Understand Nano-Plant Interactions: The Case Study of Metal-Based Nanoparticles

Abstract

Metabolomics is a powerful tool in diverse research areas, enabling an understanding of the response of organisms, such as plants, to external factors, their resistance and tolerance mechanisms against stressors, the biochemical changes and signals during plant development, and the role of specialized metabolites. Despite its advantages, metabolomics is still underused in areas such as nano-plant interactions. Nanoparticles (NPs) are all around us and have a great potential to improve and revolutionize the agri-food sector and modernize agriculture. They can drive precision and sustainability in agriculture as they can act as fertilizers, improve plant performance, protect or defend, mitigate environmental stresses, and/or remediate soil contaminants. Given their high applicability, an in-depth understanding of NPs’ impact on plants and their mechanistic action is crucial. Being aware that, in nano-plant interaction work, metabolomics is much less addressed than physiology, and that it is lacking a comprehensive review focusing on metabolomics, this review gathers the information available concerning the metabolomic tools used in studies focused on NP-plant interactions, highlighting the impact of metal-based NPs on plant metabolome, metabolite reconfiguration, and the reprogramming of metabolic pathways.

Critical Review: Uptake and Translocation of Organic Nanodelivery Vehicles in Plants

“…Research in NDV biotransformation, and specifically biocorona formation, will provide fundamental insights regarding NDV uptake by foliar and root surfaces and the transformations that occur during uptake, transport by different vascular tissues (phloem and xylem), and NDV crossing of cell wall and cell membrane . Proteomic and metabolomic studies will be invaluable tools in this area, , which shares many of the same experimental challenges faced by uptake and translocation studies, especially spatial and temporal variation. The sequential and dynamic nature of NDV transformations in plants is expected to make their identification and quantification temporally challenging.…”

“…A variety of tracking methods demonstrate that NDVs are moving within plants and entering cells, even though many of the NDVs studied are much larger than the dimensions of cellular pathways, which suggests NDVs may be inducing compositional and structural changes to plants on a cellular level, or the other way around. No significant mechanistic understanding has been made in this area as far as organic NDVs are concerned, but previous studies on inorganic NDVs highlight the role that transcriptomic and proteomic studies can have in elucidating the effect of NDVs on plants. ,− …”

Biosynthesis of the allelopathic alkaloid gramine in barley by a cryptic oxidative rearrangement

“…We chose the model plant A. thaliana because of the ease of the genetic transformation system that is available. After stable transformation, selected T1 plants constitutively expressing the genes AMIS, NMT, or a combination of both were tested for the presence of AMI (3) and gramine (1) by reversed-phase ultraperformance liquid chromatography fluorescence detection (RP-UPLC-FLD) (15). More than 88% (N = 82) of the herbicide-resistant progeny of all plants transformed with the AMIS construct (N = 92) exhibited AMI (3) concentrations above the limit of quantification.…”

Unveiling the role of inorganic nanoparticles in Earth’s biochemical evolution through electron transfer dynamics

“… 451 , 452 , 453 , 454 Additionally, inorganic iron oxide nanoparticles have been found to increase the production of photosynthetic pigments in plants and electron transfer, enhancing their photosynthesis and leading to improved growth and development, 436 , 439 , 441 , 442 , 447 , 451 and can even improve nitrogen fixation in soybeans. 455 These nanoparticles can also influence plants at the molecular level, impacting gene expression and metabolic pathways, 430 , 431 , 436 , 453 , 456 which can further affect their growth patterns. These applications demonstrate the diverse potential of inorganic nanoparticles as inorganic enzymes in addressing environmental challenges and contributing to sustainable agricultural practices.…”