Abstract
Agricultural soils are among the depositories of engineered nanomaterials (ENMs). Soil exposure to ENMs occurs through the intentional use of nano-agrochemicals, as well as through incidental contamination from industrial-waste release, irrigation with wastewater or gray water, amendment with ENMs-loaded sludge (soil conditioning to stimulate plant growth), or atmospheric fallouts. Concerns about ENM interactions with plants raise two questions. (1) Are ENMs taken up from soil by plants? (2) If they are taken up, do they remain in the nanoform within plant tissues? Experiments with crop plants have demonstrated that some ENMs such as TiO2 are taken up by roots and translocated to aboveground tissues, including fruits, without biotransformation. CeO2 ENM is also taken up by the roots; however, although most of it remains as ENM, it releases cerium ions that are incorporated into organic compounds. CeO2 ENM has been shown to be translocated from roots to seeds in soybean grown in soil amended with such ENM. On the other hand, ZnO ENM is transformed at the soil/root interface, leading to tissue Zn enrichment. Overall, most ENMs are taken up by plants with either low or no transformation, and accumulate in tissues.
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Acknowledgements
W e would like to acknowledge the NSF/EPA Agreement No. DBI-1266377, the NIH 2G12MD007592, USDA Grant No. 2016–67021–24985, and the NSF CHE-0840525 and DBI-1429708 Grants. Partial funding was provided by the NSF ERC on Nanotechnology Enabled Water Treatment (EEC-1449500). I.A. Medina-Velo acknowledges the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, Mexico.
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Medina-Velo, I.A., Peralta-Videa, J.R. & Gardea-Torresdey, J.L. Assessing plant uptake and transport mechanisms of engineered nanomaterials from soil. MRS Bulletin 42, 379–384 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1557/mrs.2017.87
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/mrs.2017.87