Department of Biology, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock, Arkansas 72204, United States.
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, Arkansas 72205, United States.
ACS Appl Bio Mater. 2021 May 17;4(5):4292-4301. doi: 10.1021/acsabm.1c00108. Epub 2021 Apr 16.
Carbon-based nanomaterials (CBNs) such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene can be beneficial to crops exposed to abiotic stresses such as drought and high salinity. Our findings suggest that the improvement observed in stressed crops treated with CBNs can be associated with CBN-induced restoration of gene expression. When subjected to salt stress, sorghum seedlings showed modified expression in 51 stress-related genes. The introduction of CNTs or graphene into the salty growth medium resulted in the restoration of the expression of 29 affected genes, resembling that of untreated sorghum seedlings. RNA-Seq approach allowed us to analyze the total gene expression of CBN-treated rice exposed to water-deficit stress and gene expression of CBN-treated tomato plants exposed to salt stress. The application of CNTs or graphene resulted in full or partial restoration of expression of 458 and 1620 genes, respectively, affected by water-deficit stress in rice. Similarly, CBN treatment of NaCl-exposed tomato seedlings led to full or partial restoration of 1639 and 1391 salt-affected transcripts, respectively. Of the genes with restored expression, many of them were identified as major stress-response genes and major transcriptional factors (aquaporins, dehydrins, and heat shock proteins/co-chaperons, , ) and were associated with key stress-signaling pathways (ABA-signaling, InsP signaling, and MAPK signaling) in all three tested plant species. These findings provide evidence that CBNs can provide halotolerance and drought tolerance by normalizing the expression of affected stress genes.
碳基纳米材料（CBNs），如碳纳米管（CNTs）和石墨烯，对暴露于非生物胁迫（如干旱和高盐度）的作物有益。我们的研究结果表明，用 CBN 处理的受胁迫作物的改善可能与 CBN 诱导的基因表达恢复有关。在盐胁迫下，高粱幼苗中 51 个与胁迫相关的基因表达发生改变。将 CNT 或石墨烯引入盐生长介质中，导致 29 个受影响基因的表达得到恢复，类似于未处理的高粱幼苗。RNA-Seq 方法使我们能够分析暴露于水分亏缺胁迫的 CBN 处理的水稻的总基因表达和暴露于盐胁迫的 CBN 处理的番茄植物的基因表达。CNTs 或石墨烯的应用分别导致 458 个和 1620 个基因的表达完全或部分恢复，这些基因在水稻中受到水分亏缺胁迫的影响。同样，CBN 处理 NaCl 暴露的番茄幼苗导致 1639 个和 1391 个盐胁迫转录本的完全或部分恢复。在恢复表达的基因中，许多被鉴定为主要胁迫反应基因和主要转录因子（水通道蛋白、脱水蛋白和热休克蛋白/共伴侣），并与三种测试植物中的关键胁迫信号通路（ABA 信号、InsP 信号和 MAPK 信号）有关。这些发现提供了证据表明，CBN 可以通过正常化受影响的应激基因的表达来提供耐盐性和耐旱性。
