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Polystyrene Nanoplastics Impair Transcriptional Resilience to Salt Stress in Rice
Summary
Scientists found that tiny plastic particles (nanoplastics) make it much harder for rice plants to recover from salt stress, even after the stress is removed. The plastic particles disrupt the plants' ability to turn the right genes on and off, preventing them from bouncing back to normal growth. This matters because nanoplastics are increasingly found in our food system, and this research suggests they could harm crop resilience and potentially affect the nutritional quality of foods we eat.
Nanoplastics (NPs) and salinity increasingly co-occur in agricultural systems. Here, we investigated how polystyrene NPs (502 nm, 10 mg L-1) impair rice (Oryza sativa L.) recovery from salt (50 mM NaCl). During stress, NPs synergistically amplified ionic toxicity, elevating Na+/K+ ratios 48% above additive predictions. Crucially, this synergism intensified to 60% during recovery, preventing homeostasis restoration. Transcriptomic analysis revealed that NP-salt interactions shifted from additive to antagonistic poststress, disrupting trehalose pathway regulation critical for osmotic adjustment. Additionally, coexposed plants failed to switch from stress- to growth-associated gene modules, exhibiting 34% fewer differentially expressed genes than salt-only plants. These findings demonstrate that NPs compromise transcriptional resilience by disrupting adaptive reprogramming, emphasizing the need for recovery-inclusive risk assessments.
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