Genotoxicity of Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles in Plants Demonstrated Using Transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana

As important members of earth biosphere, higher plants are inevitably exposed to nanoparticles (NP) released into the environment. Therefore, determining NP-induced phytotoxicity is ecologically important. Currently, researches into genotoxic effects of NP on plants are limited. In this study, Arabidopsis thaliana lines transgenic for homologous recombination (HR) and transcriptional gene silencing (TGS) reporter genes were for the first time adopted to assess the genotoxicity of Zinc oxide NP (ZnO–NP). Results showed that the root exposure to ZnO–NP led to increased HR and alleviation of TGS in the aerial tissues, indicative of the genotoxicity of ZnO–NP in plants. The increased Zn content after root exposure to ZnO–NP and the similar induction of HR and TGS alleviation after root exposure to equivalent Zn ions suggested that the genotoxicity of ZnO–NP might be mainly induced by Zn ions in aerial tissues that were transported from decomposed ZnO–NP in either medium or plant roots.