Integrating transcriptome and physiological analyses to elucidate the molecular responses of buckwheat to graphene oxide

With the increasing application of nanomaterials, evaluation of the phytotoxicity of nanoparticles has attracted considerable interest. Buckwheat is an economically pseudocereal crop, which is a potential model for investi-gating the response of plants to hazardous materials. In this study, the response of buckwheat to graphene oxide (GO) was investigated by integrating physiological and transcriptome analysis. GO can penetrate into buckwheat root and stem, and high concentrations of GO inhibited seedlings growth. High concentration of GO improved ROS production and regulated the activities and gene expression of oxidative enzymes, which implying GO may affect plant growth via regulating ROS detoxification. Root and stem exhibit distinct transcriptomic responses to GO, and the GO-responsive genes in stem are more enriched in cell cycle and epigenetic regulation. GO inhibited plant hormone biosynthesis and signaling by analyzing the expression data. Additionally, 97 small secreted peptides (SSPs) encoding genes were found to be involved in GO response. The gene expression of 111 tran-scription factor (TFs) and 43 receptor-like protein kinases (RLKs) were regulated by GO, and their expression showed high correlation with SSPs. Finally, the TFs-SSPs-RLKs signaling networks in regulating GO response were proposed. This study provides insights into the molecular responses of plants to GO.

Automated summary

This study investigated the response of buckwheat to graphene oxide (GO) and found that high concentrations of GO inhibited seedlings growth by increasing ROS production and regulating oxidative enzymes. GO also showed distinct transcriptomic responses in the root and stem of buckwheat, affecting plant growth by inhibiting plant hormone biosynthesis and signaling. Furthermore, the study identified genes involved in GO response, including small secreted peptides (SSPs) encoding genes, transcription factors (TFs), and receptor-like protein kinases (RLKs), proposing a signaling network for regulating GO response.