Newly engineered nanoparticles as potential therapeutic agents for plants to ameliorate abiotic and biotic stress
Malika Sharma, Pallavi Singh
Abstract
Food scarcity is a global concern that is growing every year. Biotic stress factors like pathogenic fungi, bacteria, viruses, and nematode pests aggravate the situation by imparting detrimental effects on crops by unfavourably affecting their growth and yield. Abiotic stress factors include extreme heat and cold, drought, high salinity, floods, and heavy metal toxicity. Annually, millions of hectares of agricultural land worldwide are lost to these stress elicitors. To combat these stress factors, plants have developed strong defense mechanisms, including protective physical barriers, the overexpression of certain genes, and the production of secondary metabolites. Nanotechnology offers numerous novel and sustainable substitutes for conventional agriculture due to its potential uses in this field. Newly engineered nanoparticles (NENPs) are synthesized nanoparticles that are 1-100 nm in size and possess unique properties that help plants combat abiotic and biotic stress factors efficiently. NENPs are designed to ameliorate stress, alleviate nutrient inadequacy in soil, improve plant nutritional value, and overall boost crop productivity. This review illustrates the applications of various NENPs, which help plants cope with biotic and abiotic stresses. It highlights the effective induced changes that develop in the morphology, physiology, and biochemistry of different plants under stress and the role of NENPs. This review also highlights the toxic and deleterious effects of NENPs on the soil when used in higher doses and concludes with the prospects of NENPs in agriculture.