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Uptake of graphene enhanced the photophosphorylation performed by chloroplasts in rice plants

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Abstract

New and enhanced functions were potentially imparted to the plant organelles after interaction with nanoparticles. In this study, we found that ∼ 44% and ∼ 29% of the accumulated graphene in the rice leaves passively transported to the chloroplasts and thylakoid, respectively, significantly enhanced the fluorescence intensity of chloroplasts, and promoted about 2.4 times higher adenosine triphosphate production than that of controls. The enhancement of graphene on the photophosphorylation was ascribed to two reasons: One is that graphene facilitates the electron transfer process of photosystem II in thylakoid, and the other is that graphene protects the photosystem II against photo-bleaching by acting as a scavenger of reactive oxygen species. Overall, our work here confirmed that graphene translocating in the thylakoid promoted the photosynthetic activity of chloroplast in vivo and in vitro, providing new opportunities for designing biomimetic materials to enhance the solar energy conversion systems, especially for repairing or increasing the photosynthesis activity of the plants grown under stress environment.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21677074) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 021114380082).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, School of the Environment, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210093, China

    Kun Lu, Danlei Shen, Shipeng Dong & Liang Mao

  2. CAS Key Laboratory for Biomedical Effects of Nanomaterials and Nanosafety and CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, Beijing, 100190, China

    Chunying Chen

  3. College Environmental Science & Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200092, China

    Sijie Lin

  4. State Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Shan Lu

  5. Stockbridge School of Agriculture, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, 01003, USA

    Baoshan Xing

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  1. Kun Lu
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Lu, K., Shen, D., Dong, S. et al. Uptake of graphene enhanced the photophosphorylation performed by chloroplasts in rice plants. Nano Res. 13, 3198–3205 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-020-2862-1

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