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Review
. 2022 Jul 11:13:951752.
doi: 10.3389/fpls.2022.951752. eCollection 2022.

Recent Advancements and Development in Nano-Enabled Agriculture for Improving Abiotic Stress Tolerance in Plants

Natasha Manzoor  1 , Liaqat Ali  2 , Temoor Ahmed  3 , Muhammad Noman  3 , Muhammad Adrees  4 , Muhammad Shafiq Shahid  5 , Solabomi Olaitan Ogunyemi  6 , Khlode S A Radwan  7 , Gang Wang  1   8 , Haitham E M Zaki  9   10
Affiliations
Review

Recent Advancements and Development in Nano-Enabled Agriculture for Improving Abiotic Stress Tolerance in Plants

Natasha Manzoor et al. Front Plant Sci. .

Abstract

Abiotic stresses, such as heavy metals (HMs), drought, salinity and water logging, are the foremost limiting factors that adversely affect the plant growth and crop productivity worldwide. The plants respond to such stresses by activating a series of intricate mechanisms that subsequently alter the morpho-physiological and biochemical processes. Over the past few decades, abiotic stresses in plants have been managed through marker-assisted breeding, conventional breeding, and genetic engineering approaches. With technological advancement, efficient strategies are required to cope with the harmful effects of abiotic environmental constraints to develop sustainable agriculture systems of crop production. Recently, nanotechnology has emerged as an attractive area of study with potential applications in the agricultural science, including mitigating the impacts of climate change, increasing nutrient utilization efficiency and abiotic stress management. Nanoparticles (NPs), as nanofertilizers, have gained significant attention due to their high surface area to volume ratio, eco-friendly nature, low cost, unique physicochemical properties, and improved plant productivity. Several studies have revealed the potential role of NPs in abiotic stress management. This review aims to emphasize the role of NPs in managing abiotic stresses and growth promotion to develop a cost-effective and environment friendly strategy for the future agricultural sustainability.

Keywords: abiotic stresses; drought; heavy metals; nanofertilizers; salinity.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The positive effect of nanoparticles (NPs) on plant growth and development under abiotic stress conditions. The figure created using BioRender (https://biorender.com/).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Schematic representation of potential NPs applications in plant agriculture. The figure created using BioRender (https://biorender.com/).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Schematic representation of NPs application approaches, uptake and translocation of NPs in plants. NPs can be delivered to plants by soil application, seed coating and foliar spray to protect plants against abiotic stresses. The figure created using BioRender (https://biorender.com/).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Schematic representation of iron oxide nanoparticles (FeO NPs) to alleviate the Cadmium (Cd) and salinity stress by reducing the acropetal translocation of salt and metals ions. Reproduced with permission from Manzoor et al. (2021). Copyright 2021 Elsevier. The figure created using BioRender (https://biorender.com/).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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