Implementation of Biopolymeric Nanomaterials to Reduce the Negative Impacts of Salinity on Tomato Quantity and Quality.

Sustainable waste reduction strategies and innovative waste reduction concepts, as well as their application in the creation of compounds and products with added value, can benefit the economy while reducing environmental pressures. This research aimed to use biopolymeric nanomaterials to reduce the negative effects of salinity on tomato yield and quality. Three types of biopolymers (cellulose, pectin, and starch) were synthesized and characterized using natural materials such as rice straw, orange peel, and potato peel. The polymer's ability to retain sodium ions was investigated. A greenhouse experiment was conducted to assess the potential of natural polymers (cellulose, starch, and pectin individually or in combination) to reduce the salinity side effects on tomato plants (Solanum Lycopersicon L.) cultivar (Super Strain B). Tomato seeds were germinated on soil bits for 20 days before planting five seedlings in each pot (20 cm diameter) with three replicates and filling each pot with sandy loam soil, with or without natural polymers at a rate of 2 g/Kg. The results revealed that all the polymers utilized had a superlative capability to hold sodium ions for both soluble and exchanged sodium. The use of various natural polymer hydrogels increased the number and fresh weight of tomato fruits. Data showed that using biopolymers hydrogels reduced salinity stress by rising the content of phenol, flavonoid, and antioxidant enzymes such as catalase and peroxidase. The use of natural biopolymers significantly improved total soluble solids, pH, and juice substance. Implementing biopolymeric materials could reduce environmental pressures while increasing farm income. Innovative waste reduction strategies, such as the creation of value-added products, will benefit the economy, and this work is a good start in that direction.

Nanobiotechnological Approaches to Enhance Drought Tolerance in Catharanthus roseus Plants Using Salicylic Acid in Bulk and Nanoform.

Drought has a detrimental effect on crop production, affecting economically important plants' growth rates and development. Catharanthus roseus is an important medicinal plant that produces many pharmacologically active compounds, some of which have significant antitumor activity. The effect of bulk salicylic acid (SA) and salicylic acid nanoparticles (SA-NPs) were evaluated on water-stressed Catharanthus roseus plants. The results showed that SA and SA-NPs alleviated the negative effects of drought in the treated plants by increasing their shoot and root weights, relative water content, leaf area index, chlorophyll content, and total alkaloids percentage. From the results, a low concentration (0.05 mM) of SA-NPs exerted positive effects on the treated plants, while the best results of the bulk SA were recorded after using the highest concentration (0.1 mM). Both treatments increased the expression level of WRKY1, WRKY2, WRKY40, LEA, and MYC2 genes, while the mRNA level of MPKK1 and MPK6 did not show a significant change. This study discussed the importance of SA-NPs in the induction of drought stress tolerance even when used in low concentrations, in contrast to bulk SA, which exerts significant results only at higher concentrations.

Nanocarriers: A Reliable Tool for the Delivery of Anticancer Drugs.

Nanomedicines have gained popularity due to their potential therapeutic applications, especially cancer treatment. Targeted nanoparticles can deliver drugs directly to cancer cells and enable prolonged drug release, reducing off-target toxicity and increasing therapeutic efficacy. However, translating nanomedicines from preclinical to clinical settings has been difficult. Rapid advancements in nanotechnology promise to enhance cancer therapies. Nanomedicine offers advanced targeting and multifunctionality. Nanoparticles (NPs) have several uses nowadays. They have been studied as drug transporters, tumor gene delivery agents, and imaging contrast agents. Nanomaterials based on organic, inorganic, lipid, or glycan substances and synthetic polymers have been used to enhance cancer therapies. This review focuses on polymeric nanoparticle delivery strategies for anticancer nanomedicines.

Chitosan and Nano-Chitosan for Management of Harpophora maydis: Approaches for Investigating Antifungal Activity, Pathogenicity, Maize-Resistant Lines, and Molecular Diagnosis of Plant Infection.

The rapid spread of late wilt disease among maize cultivations has resulted in serious economic losses in many countries. Harpophora maydis is the main cause of this destructive vascular disease. Here we evaluate the fungicidal activity of chitosan and nano-chitosan against six aggressive isolates of H. maydis collected from different Egyptian governorates. Pathogenicity tests for these isolates show that the highest disease severity was found for the Giza isolate. The isolates were tested for their response to the fungicide Permis, chitosan, and nano-chitosan treatments in vitro and in vivo. Nano-chitosan treatments fully inhibited the radial growth of H. maydis isolates at concentrations of 5 and 10 mM, compared to the full control growth (9 cm in diameter). On the other hand, in vitro, in vivo, and molecular diagnosis results showed high antifungal activity of chitosan and nano-chitosan compared to the Permis fungicide. Chitosan at the nano and normal scales proved a potent ability to enhance plant resistance in response to H. maydis. Disease severity (DS%) was extremely decreased among the tested cultivars by using nano-chitosan; the highest percentage was obtained on Giza 178 cv, where the DS% was 21.7% compared to 42.3% for the control. Meanwhile, the lowest percentage was obtained on Giza 180 cv with DS% 31.2 and the control with 41.3%. The plants treated with nano-chitosan showed the highest growth parameters for all cultivars. Such natural treatments could reduce the impact on the environment as they are non-pollutant natural compounds, protect the plants by reducing fungal activity, and induce plant resistance.

Nanoinhibitory Impacts of Salicylic Acid, Glycyrrhizic Acid Ammonium Salt, and Boric Acid Nanoparticles against Phytoplasma Associated with Faba Bean.

Phytoplasmas are economically important plant pathogenic bacterial diseases, causing severe yield losses worldwide. In this study, we tested nanoformulations such as glycyrrhizic acid ammonium salt (GAS), salicylic acid (SA), and boric acid (BA) as novel antimicrobial agents inducing the resistance against the phytoplasma disease in faba bean. The nanoparticles (NP) were foliar-applied to naturally phytoplasma-infected faba bean with three concentrations from each of SA, GAS, and BA, under field conditions. Nested PCR (using universal primer pairs P1/P7 and R16F2n/R16R2) were reacted positively with all symptomatic samples and gave a product size of approximately 1200 bp, while the healthy plant gave no results. Transmission electron microscopy examinations of phytoplasma-infected faba bean plants treated with different nanoparticles revealed that severe damage occurred in phytoplasma particle's structure, degradation, malformation, lysis in the cell membrane, and the cytoplasmic leakage followed by complete lysis of phytoplasma cells. Exogenous application of GAS-NP (1.68 µM), SA-NP (0.28 µM), and BA-NP (0.124 µM) suppressed the infection percentage of phytoplasma by 75%, 50%, and 20%, and the disease severity by 84%, 64%, and 54%, respectively. Foliar application of nanoparticles improved Fv/Fm (maximum quantum efficiency of PSII Photochemistry), PI (the performance index), SPAD chlorophyll (the relative chlorophyll content), shoots height, and leaves number, thus inducing recovery of the plant biomass and green pods yield. The most effective treatment was GAS-NP at 1.68 µM that mediated substantial increases in the shoots' fresh weight, shoots' dry weight, number of pods per plant, and green pods yield by 230%, 244%, 202% and 178%, respectively, compared to those of infected plants not sprayed with nanoparticles. This study demonstrated the utility of using nanoparticles, particularly GAS-NP at 1.68 µM to suppress the phytoplasma infection.

Influence of Spraying Nano-Curcumin and Nano-Glycyrrhizic Acid on Resistance Enhancement and Some Growth Parameters of Soybean (Glycine max) in Response to Tetranychus urticae Infestation and Drought Stress.

Modern nanotechnology has been credited as one of the most significant inventions of the 21st century. Many agricultural disciplines have been affected by nanotechnology in agriculture. Pest control based on natural compounds needs to be enhanced, and enhancing plant growth under climate change conditions, with increasing periods of drought in many countries, is a very vital aim. Thus, the effect of curcumin nanoparticles (Cu-NPs) and glycyrrhizic acid nanoparticles (GA-NPs) as a foliar application under water deficit on natural infestation with the two-spotted spider mite Tetranychus urticae, plant growth and yield, anatomical and chemical parameters were investigated during this study. The obtained results revealed that drought stress over the two studied seasons significantly increased the population of T. urticae and decreased all morphological and yield characteristics. The application of three mM GA-NPs reduced the mite population average by 39% while using the same concentration of Cu-NPs caused a 33.9% reduction percentage under drought stress. Using 1 mM GA-NPs gave the highest averages of plant height, number of branches, and leaves/plant fresh and dry weight. Moreover, the number of pods, 100 seed weight and seed yield (kg/ha) increased significantly as a result of spraying with GA-NPs under water deficit. From the results, water deficit decreased the values of the leaf and stem anatomical parameters. Treatment with Cu-NPs or GA-NPs under drought stress increased the thickness of mid-vein, xylem, and phloem tissues. Likewise, such treatment increased stem diameter due mainly to the increase in the thickness of cortex, phloem, and xylem tissues compared with the control. Spraying plants with GA-NPs at 1 mM increased the percentages of nitrogen, phosphor, and potassium in seeds in addition to total chlorophyll. Moreover, glutamate, aspartate, leucine, arginine, Lysine, glycine, tyrosine, tryptophan, and methionine concentrations did not differ significantly (p > 0.05) in response to all the studied levels of Cu-NPs or GA-NPs either under normal irrigation or drought condition. In light of these findings, researchers and producers should apply and test both Cu-NPs and GA-NP as nano-fertilizer natural sources on economically viable crops.

Comparative studies of eco-friendly compounds like humic acid, salicylic, and glycyrrhizic acids and their nanocomposites on French basil (Ocimum basilicum L. cv. Grand verde).

As the green tactics for enhancing plant growth and production using naturally occurring materials are highly needed, it is important to use the nanoformulation of these materials as an attractive novel technique. Therefore, this research has been performed to evaluate the plants' morphological traits, the qualitative parameters, and molecular genetic characteristics using random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) of French basil independence on growth biostimulators and their nanocomposite. The treatments included normal formulations and nanocomposite formulation of humic acid (5 mM HA), salicylic acid (1.4 mM SA), and glycyrrhizic acid ammonium salt (0.4 mM GA) and control treatment (water application). The results show that foliar spray with HA, SA, GA, and their nanocomposites significantly increased (p ≤ 0.05) on all vegetative growth characters, photosynthetic pigments, oil yield/plant, mineral content, and antibacterial activity as compared with control plants. Also, 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) values of different samples used varied from 70.63 to 74.93%, with a significant increase compared to untreated plants. The most marked increases have been observed in treated plants with biostimulants in the nanocomposites form than in the natural form. On the other hand, GA and its nanocomposite showed variable effects on basil plants and gave the lowest increase values in all parameters than the other biostimulant but have high antimicrobial activity. For the molecular study, ten selected primers displayed a total of 288 amplified fragments scored per primer ranging from 7 to 46 fragments; 157 bands were polymorphic with 69% polymorphism. It could be concluded that humic acid and its nanocomposite are the most effective biostimulants that increased plant productivity and oil content.

OXI1 kinase plays a key role in resistance of Arabidopsis towards aphids (Myzus persicae).

Plants have co-evolved with a diverse array of pathogens and insect herbivores and so have evolved an extensive repertoire of constitutive and induced defence mechanisms activated through complex signalling pathways. OXI1 kinase is required for activation of mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) and is an essential part of the signal transduction pathway linking oxidative burst signals to diverse downstream responses. Furthermore, changes in the levels of OXI1 appear to be crucial for appropriate signalling. Callose deposition also plays a key role in defence. Here we demonstrate, for the first time, that OXI1 plays an important role in defence against aphids. The Arabidopsis mutant, oxi1-2, showed significant resistance both in terms of population build-up (p < 0.001) and the rate of build-up (p < 0.001). Arabidopsis mutants for ß-1,3-glucanase, gns2 and gns3, showed partial aphid resistance, significantly delaying developmental rate, taking two-fold longer to reach adulthood. Whilst ß-1,3-glucanase genes GNS1, GNS2, GNS3 and GNS5 were not induced in oxi1-2 in response to aphid feeding, GNS2 was expressed to high levels in the corresponding WT (Col-0) in response to aphid feeding. Callose synthase GSL5 was up-regulated in oxi1-2 in response to aphids. The results suggest that resistance in oxi1-2 mutants is through induction of callose deposition via MAPKs resulting in ROS induction as an early response. Furthermore, the results suggest that the ß-1,3-glucanase genes, especially GNS2, play an important role in host plant susceptibility to aphids. Better understanding of signalling cascades underpinning tolerance to biotic stress will help inform future breeding programmes for enhancing crop resilience.