Researchers Explore Impact of Nanomaterials on Plants under Salt Stress

Researchers from Pakistan and the US analyzed the impact of nanomaterials on the regulation of gene expression and metabolomics of plants under salt stress. The feature is published in Plants.

The use of nanoparticles is one of the emerging techniques in stimulating specific biochemical reactions related to plant ecophysiological output. They are efficient tools in this process because of their small size, increased surface area and absorption rate, efficient catalysis of reactions, and reactive sites. Regulating the ecophysiological condition in saline environments could aid in plant growth and resilience of plants under stress.

According to the authors, the metabolic profiles of plants can be improved using genomic, proteomic, metabolic, and transcriptomic techniques. Furthermore, they also encourage more studies on the plant salinity stress response based on molecular interactions in response to nanoparticle treatment. Though the continuous release of nanoparticles in the surrounding soil may have negative and positive impacts on plant growth and development, it was found that low concentrations of nanoparticles could be beneficial and must be explored further through research.

The authors also discussed some points to be addressed in developing salt tolerant plants.

Read the feature paper in Plants.