Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
system to targeted sites, the subsequent unloading of chemicals (fungicides, insec-
ticides, etc.) can be achieved by using these nanoparticles. Plant cell-nanoparticles
interaction modifies the plant gene expression and its biological pathways, which
consequently affects plant growth and development.
It is well known that nanobiotechnology industry is spreading rapidly; neverthe-
less, there is a crucial urgency to perform further studies on the subject. Hence, fu-
ture work is needed to evaluate how the nanoparticles penetrate and are transported
within the plants, and also the mechanism of intracellular internalization to explore
the potential use of nanoparticles. However, in spite of the fact that plants have the
capability to endure the presence of nanoparticles inside their tissues, an important
issue that arises is what happens when such nanoparticles move into the food chain.
Exploitation of the biological machinery of nature for designing a 'smart' bio-
material such as forisomes could also be used to develop stress tolerant plants.
Forisomes are spindle-like bodies that are composed of ATP-independent, calcium-
powered, mechanically active proteins which are present in sieve tubes in legumes
(Tuteja et al.
2010a
-
c
). When legumes experience mechanical injury, forisomes
disperse and occlude sieve tubes to hinder leakage of photoassimilates or invasion
of phytopathogens (Tuteja et al.
2010c
). The interesting properties of the forisomes
could be exploited in biomimetics and in nanobiotechnological devices (Shen et al.
2005
; Knoblauch et al.
2004a
,
b
; Peters et al.
2008
). The overexpression of fori-
somes in crops may also lead to the development of the insect injury resistant plants.
Acknowledgments 
Work on plant abiotic stress tolerance and crop improvement in NT's labora-
tory is partially supported by Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India,
and Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India.
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