Department of NanoEngineering University of California San Diego 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, California 92093, United States.
Institute for Materials Discovery and Design University of California San Diego 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, California 92093, United States.
ACS Macro Lett. 2024 Jun 18;13(6):726-733. doi: 10.1021/acsmacrolett.4c00297. Epub 2024 May 29.
Plants, essential for food, oxygen, and economic stability, are under threat from human activities, biotic threats, and climate change, requiring rapid technological advancements for protection. Biohybrid systems, merging synthetic macromolecules with biological components, have provided improvement to biological systems in the past, namely, in the biomedical arena, motivating an opportunity to enhance plant well-being. Nevertheless, strategies for plant biohybrid systems remain limited. In this study, we present a method using grafting-from ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) under physiological conditions to integrate norbornene-derived polymers into live plants by spray coating. The approach involves creating biological macroinitiators on leaf surfaces, which enable subsequent polymerization of norbornene-derived monomers. Characterization techniques, including FTIR spectroscopy, SEM EDS imaging, ICP-MS, nanoindentation, and XPS, confirmed the presence and characterized the properties of the polymeric layers on leaves. The demonstrated modifiability and biocompatibility could offer the potential to maintain plant health in various applications, including the development of thermal barriers, biosensors, and crop protection layers.
植物是食物、氧气和经济稳定的基础，但其正受到人类活动、生物威胁和气候变化的威胁，需要快速的技术进步来加以保护。生物杂交系统将合成大分子与生物成分融合，过去已经为生物系统提供了改进，特别是在生物医学领域，这为增强植物健康提供了机会。然而，植物生物杂交系统的策略仍然有限。在本研究中，我们提出了一种在生理条件下使用开环复分解聚合（ROMP）进行接枝的方法，通过喷雾涂层将降冰片烯衍生聚合物整合到活体植物中。该方法涉及在叶片表面创建生物大分子引发剂，从而使随后聚合降冰片烯衍生单体。傅里叶变换红外光谱（FTIR）、扫描电子显微镜能量色散 X 射线光谱（SEM EDS）成像、电感耦合等离子体质谱（ICP-MS）、纳米压痕和 X 射线光电子能谱（XPS）等表征技术证实了聚合物层在叶片上的存在和特性。所展示的可修饰性和生物相容性可能为在各种应用中维持植物健康提供潜力，包括热障、生物传感器和作物保护层的开发。
