Smart delivery mechanisms of nanofertilizers and nanocides in crop biotechology

Abstract

Abstract Nanobiotechnology a predicted major economic force in the near future is a potential area revolutionizing almost every sector of life. Nanosciences incorporates exciting areas of research and development at the interface between biology, chemistry and physics. Nanobiotechnology is having huge potential, and attracting substantial increasing investments from governments and from private sectors across the world. Progress of Nanobiotechnology in biomedical sciences has indeed revolutionized various diagnostic and therapeutic approaches in the last few years, which has given implications of carrying out deeper studies to establish nanotechnology in plant sciences, agro-ecosystems to develop and deliver smart applications in crop improvement programs. In this chapter, we provide an overview of Nanobiotechnology employed in plant sciences and describe concisely the key and unique properties of nanomaterials and the processes of nanoformulations for applications in agriculture and delivering with environmental benefits. Due to their unique properties at nanoscale regime, bio nanomaterials synthesized from plants and microbes are receiving greater applications in agriculture sectors. There are plenty of current opportunities of using polymeric soft nanomaterials, which will provide smarter and safer options of delivery of biomolecules, with strategies aiming at stimulating or enhancing plant defense mechanisms for crop improvement programs. The inputs from research and development through multidisciplinary collaborations with tremendous changes in filling gaps in knowledge in plant Nanobiotechnology enabling some success outputs in plant science research. Nanomaterials have been used in crop biotechnology as “sensing materials” to develop nanodiagnostics like nanomaterial-based biosensors viz., nanosensors. These nanosensors provide promising opportunities to allow rapid and precise detection of pathogenic microbes in plants. The newer types of nanosensors which are still in initial stages include plasmonics, fluorescence resonance energy transfer-based nanosensors, carbon-based electrochemical nanosensors, nanowire and antibody nanosensors. These nanosensors employ plant metabolic fluxes and trace the pathogenic microbial residual metabolites. There are advancements in research to discover of smart nanosensors to detect mycotoxins. One such example is mycosensor which is a competitive antibody-based assay successfully introduced in market to screen for mycotoxins in crop plants like wheat, corn and barley. The usage of conventional fertilizers can be gradually replaced with nanostructured fertilizers i.e., nanofertilizers to improve the uptake of nutrients with enhanced smart delivery systems. The nanofertilizers are coming as a very encouraging contribution to boost agricultural productivity. Nanobiotechnology has created ground-breaking innovative opportunities of species-independent biomolecule passive delivery of Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), Ribonucleic acid (RNA) and proteins. An optimal platform of plant genetic engineering is being established in the era of nuclease-based genome editing, encouraging the development of genetically modified crops with interventions of nanoparticles delivery techniques i.e., nanoparticle-mediated clustered regularly interspersed palindromic repeats—CRISPR associated proteins (CRISPR-Cas9) technology, with abilities to traverse plant cell walls applicable to broad host range and vastly tunable physico-chemical properties for various cargo conjugation systems. To address the key challenge in the agricultural sector, which demands the tremendous reduction in usage of pesticides due to various environmental issues, Nanobiotechnology is emerging as a very useful alternative tool offering smart delivery systems referred as nanopesticides or nanocides. These nanocides come up with promises of simple dispersions of nanoemulsion as well as easy encapsulation of active ingredients with permeable nanoparticles to improve bioavailability. With abundant multidisciplinary approaches and research developments on applications of Nanobiotechnology in agriculture, we can look forward to overcome certain bottlenecks in implementation of nanoformulations for sustainable agriculture.