Amino acid transporters mediate autonomous delivery of nanoparticle vehicles into living plants

Xue Xia, Jiawei Dong, Aijie Li, Yanlin Wang, Yang Liu, Yingfang Zhu, Liang Xu, Zhiyang Jing, Jing Wang, Yan Zou, Shiyong Sun, Lu Wang, Yiqing Lu, Alex Soeriyadi, Xuelu Wang, John W. Patrick, Christina E. Offler, Meng Zheng (), Chun-Peng Song () and Bingyang Shi ()
Additional contact information
Xue Xia: Henan University
Jiawei Dong: Henan University
Aijie Li: Henan University
Yanlin Wang: Henan University
Yang Liu: Henan University
Yingfang Zhu: Henan University
Liang Xu: Henan University
Zhiyang Jing: Henan University
Jing Wang: Henan University
Yan Zou: Henan University
Shiyong Sun: Henan University
Lu Wang: University of Newcastle
Yiqing Lu: Henan University
Alex Soeriyadi: Agnetic Bio Innovation
Xuelu Wang: Henan University
John W. Patrick: University of Newcastle
Christina E. Offler: University of Newcastle
Meng Zheng: Henan University
Chun-Peng Song: Henan University
Bingyang Shi: Henan University

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Presence of the cell wall and the lack of streamlined pathways for cellular delivery of external agents into plants is a core challenge of plant biotechnology and crop engineering development. However, both viral and bacterial transmission have their own restrictions and the few non-heavy metal nanodelivery platforms require external forces for tissue penetration. Such dependency limits any high-throughput application considering the large plant numbers to be treated in the field or even laboratory exercises. Herein, we demonstrate Aspartic acid (Asp) decorated poly(ethylene glycol)-block-poly(2-(diisopropylamino)ethyl methacrylate) (Asp-PEG-PDPA) copolymers assembled micelles (Asp/PDPA-NP), a platform that utilises amino acid transporters (AtAAP1 and AtLHT1) as receptors for clathrin-dependent endocytosis, freely translocate to release loaded cargo into various plant tissue/cell types in a species-independent manner within ≤10 minutes through simple spray or co-culture. As proof-of-concept, abscisic acid (ABA)-loaded Asp/PDPA-NP was tested for its efficacy to confer plant drought resistance. Asp/PDPA-NP@ABA reduced the effective ABA dose down to 1 nM (one million-fold) and elicited anti-drought potency in representative eudicot (soybean) and monocot (maize) crop species. Owing to its delivery efficiency, Asp/PDPA-NP holds promise as a potent carrier for diverse chemicals and biomolecules in plant systems.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-60829-8 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-60829-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-60829-8

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().