Discipline: Ecology Environmental and Earth Sciences
Subcategory: Plant Research
Session: 1
Room: Hoover
Aaliyah Lackings - Delaware State University
Co-Author(s): Yuriy Markushin, Delaware State University, Dover, DE; Gulnihal Ozbay, Delaware State University, Dover, DE; Feyza Candan, Manisa Celal Bayar University, Manisa, Turkey
Plants as the primary producer of oxygen and food are vital to Human community of Earth. Understanding the physiological responses of plants to the environment change is very important. Likewise, nanoparticles have been on Earth for millions of years and have been used by humans for many reasons. This includes cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, environmental processes, and medial implementation. The use of nanotechnology and nanoparticles are expanding all over the world. The plant used in this study is pea green (Pisum sativum), which belongs to Fabaceae family. There were used gold (AuNP) nanoparticles-treated and control group plants in this study. The root, stem, and leaf of this plant are the focal points in this project. In this study, the pea green seeds of the control group were not treated with any AuNPs. The pea green seeds in the second group were exposed to 10 nm AuNPs with 15 ml deionized water mixture for 2 days. Then all the seeds of 2 groups were grown in the pots for 3 weeks. We used spectrometer to determine potential differences of leaf, stem and root samples for 2 groups. Each sample was placed in a small centrifuge tube and labeled (total of 6 tubes). The goal was to see how the plant with the absorbed gold nanoparticles differs from the control group plant and how it was affected. On the other hand, we used Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometry to determine the potential differences of leaf, stem and root samples for 2 groups. The measurements were repeated 3 times for better accuracy. Based on our initial results/graphs, the effects of Au nanoparticles on plants were studied. It can often be difficult to confirm the presence of dispersed nanoparticles (NPs) that are deeply embedded in cells or tissue. According to this study by comparing the FTIR graphs, it can be concluded that Au nanoparticle absorbance and translocation to the leaves, stems and roots are happening in significant rates while photosynthesis is ongoing. This result demonstrates that, the rapid growing plants such as for example pea green, can be used in environmental remediation and phytoremediation investigations. Funder Acknowledgement: – We acknowledge the Optical Science Center for Applied Research (OSCAR), the financial support of The National Science Foundation (NSF-CREST grant No 1242067, and of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA URC 5 grant No NNX15AP84A). Undergraduate internship funding is provided by the USDA NIFA Grant Award#2017-38821-26404.
Funder Acknowledgement(s): Funder Acknowledgement: - We acknowledge the Optical Science Center for Applied Research (OSCAR), the financial support of The National Science Foundation (NSF-CREST grant No 1242067, and of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA URC 5 grant No NNX15AP84A). Undergraduate internship funding is provided by the USDA NIFA Grant Award#2017-38821-26404.
Faculty Advisor: Yuriy Markushin, ymarkushin@desu.edu
Role: I did almost everything during this research, and my mentor Dr. Yuriy Markushin helped with analyzing all of the data that we acquired. Also, Dr. Feyza Candan is the scientist who originally grew the plants that were being tested in the research.