Polymer and LDH Nanoparticles Impact Protoplast Uptake

Climate change has affected different facets of our daily lives. One of these being a primary one such as food. The global population is expected to increase by 2.2 billion by 2050, which means the world's farmers will have to grow about 70% more food than what is now produced (Agriculture A-AFBF for. Food and Farm Facts, 2021). Since our current agricultural methods will not be sustainable for much longer because more than 95% of micronutrients and 99.9% of pesticides do not reach their target (Monreal et al, 2016), we are experimenting with different methods such as nanotechnology. This project analyzed the behavior of different nanoparticles in plant cells to understand their behavior to future develop nano carriers which aside from helping on crop growth, also reduce environmental impact of agrochemicals. We were able to identify patterns in different nanoparticle characteristics while exposed to protoplasts. The nanoparticles used were controlled engineered polymer and Layered Double Hydroxide nanoparticles. We used Arabidopsis thaliana protoplasts extracted by an enzyme solution following a previous protocol. We acquired the data using ICP-MS instrument and elaborated a t-test to analyze the statistical significance and difference. The results proved that negatively charged polymer nanoparticles interact more with protoplasts in comparison to the positively charged nanoparticles. Comparing LDH nanoparticles surface chemistries we identified OH, Amine, and PEG were statistically different. For future work we would like to identify if the interaction of the nanoparticle and the protoplast is superficial or if it's going inside the cell.