Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 11.11
Schematic representation of the Petri dish rizhotron with the four crops:
a
pea;
b
sun-
flower;
c
tomato;
d
wheat. Squares indicates sampling points of plant tissues. (Adopted from kind
permission of Cifuentes et al.
2010
)
nanoparticles are safe for nanoparticulate delivery in plants. Recently, genetic effect
of ferrofluids has been a subject of great interest to nanobiologists as it leads to
chromosomal aberrations in young plants (Racuciu et al.
2007a
,
2009
; Pavel et al.
1999
,
2005
). Racuciu et al. (
2007b
) analysed the influence of magnetic nanoparti-
cles coated with tetramethylammonium hydroxide on the growth of
Zea mays
plant
in early ontogenetic stages. They showed that these nanoparticles not only have
chemical but also magnetic effect on the enzymatic structures in the different stages
of photosynthesis. At low concentration of ferrofluid, the level of 'chlorophyll' was
increased while higher concentrations of ferrofluid led to its inhibition. Also, the
magnetic nanoparticles have the possibility to create some magnetic effects on the
enzymatic entities involved in different photosynthetic and developmental stages.
Therefore, in order to design the biotechnological tools for plant cultures, it is im-
portant to know the suitable ranges of ferrofluid concentration, so that a better yield
of biochemical mutant types with improved photosynthetic pigment levels can be
achieved. Zhu et al. (2010) reported that in an aqueous medium containing magne-
tite nanoparticles for the growth of Cucurbita maxima, particles can absorb, move
and accumulate in the plant tissues. On the other hand, Phaseoluslimensis is not able
to absorb and move particles. Therefore, different plants have different response to
the same nanoparticles.
Cifuentes et al. (
2010
) studied the absorption and translocation of carbon-coat-
ed magnetic (iron) nanoparticles through the root in four crop plants (Fig.
11.11
)
belonging to different families—sunflower (
Helianthus annuus
) from the family
Compositae; tomato (
Lycopersicum
sculentum
) from the Solanaceae; pea (
Pisum
sativum
) from the Fabaceae; and wheat (
Triticumae
sativum
), from theTriticeae.
They showed that after only 24 hours of exposure to the bioferro fluid, nanopar-
ticles were able to leak into the vascular tissues of the tested crops (Fig.
11.12
).
This indicates that in order to get big amounts of nanoparticles inside the plant, the
immersion of the roots into nanoparticle solutions is faster and more reliable than
