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

  • Nat Commun. 2025 Jul 21;16(1):6715. doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-60829-8.
Xue Xia  #  1  2  3 ,  Jiawei Dong  #  1  2 ,  Aijie Li  #  1  2 ,  Yanlin Wang  1  2 ,  Yang Liu  1  2 ,  Yingfang Zhu  3 ,  Liang Xu  1  2 ,  Zhiyang Jing  1  2 ,  Jing Wang  1  2 ,  Yan Zou  1  2  4 ,  Shiyong Sun  3 ,  Lu Wang  5 ,  Yiqing Lu  1  6 ,  Alex Soeriyadi  7 ,  Xuelu Wang  3 ,  John W Patrick  5 ,  Christina E Offler  5 ,  Meng Zheng  8  9 ,  Chun-Peng Song  10 ,  Bingyang Shi  11  12
Affiliations
  • 1. The Zhongzhou Laboratory for Integrative Biology, Henan-Macquarie University Joint Centre for Biomedical Innovation, School of Life Sciences, Henan University, Kaifeng, China.
  • 2. Henan Key Laboratory of Brain Targeted Bio-nanomedicine, School of Life Sciences & School of Pharmacy, Henan University, Kaifeng, China.
  • 3. State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Adaptation and Improvement, School of Life Sciences, Henan University, Kaifeng, China.
  • 4. School of Biomedical Engineering, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
  • 5. School of Environmental and Life Sciences, College of Engineering, Science and Environment, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, Australia.
  • 6. School of Engineering, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
  • 7. Agnetic Bio Innovation, Eveleigh, NSW, Australia.
  • 8. The Zhongzhou Laboratory for Integrative Biology, Henan-Macquarie University Joint Centre for Biomedical Innovation, School of Life Sciences, Henan University, Kaifeng, China. [email protected].
  • 9. Henan Key Laboratory of Brain Targeted Bio-nanomedicine, School of Life Sciences & School of Pharmacy, Henan University, Kaifeng, China. [email protected].
  • 10. State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Adaptation and Improvement, School of Life Sciences, Henan University, Kaifeng, China. [email protected].
  • 11. The Zhongzhou Laboratory for Integrative Biology, Henan-Macquarie University Joint Centre for Biomedical Innovation, School of Life Sciences, Henan University, Kaifeng, China. [email protected].
  • 12. School of Biomedical Engineering, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia. [email protected].
  • # Contributed equally.
PMID: 40695826 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-60829-8
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.

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