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Toxicity Mechanisms of Nanoplastics on Crop Growth, Interference of Phyllosphere Microbes, and Evidence for Foliar Penetration and Translocation
Summary
Researchers exposed tomato plants to nanoplastics with different surface charges and found that positively charged particles caused the most damage, including stunted growth, increased stress responses, and disruption of the leaf microbiome. The nanoplastics penetrated through leaves and traveled to the roots, demonstrating that atmospheric plastic pollution can contaminate crops from above. This is a concern for food safety, as nanoplastics accumulating in edible plants could be a route of human exposure.
Despite the increasing prevalence of atmospheric nanoplastics (NPs), there remains limited research on their phytotoxicity, foliar absorption, and translocation in plants. In this study, we aimed to fill this knowledge gap by investigating the physiological effects of tomato leaves exposed to differently charged NPs and foliar absorption and translocation of NPs. We found that positively charged NPs caused more pronounced physiological effects, including growth inhibition, increased antioxidant enzyme activity, and altered gene expression and metabolite composition and even significantly changed the structure and composition of the phyllosphere microbial community. Also, differently charged NPs exhibited differential foliar absorption and translocation, with the positively charged NPs penetrating more into the leaves and dispersing uniformly within the mesophyll cells. Additionally, NPs absorbed by the leaves were able to translocate to the roots. These findings provide important insights into the interactions between atmospheric NPs and crop plants and demonstrate that NPs' accumulation in crops could negatively impact agricultural production and food safety.