Some Structural and Molecular Markers of Gold Nanoparticles Effect

Abstract The development of nanotechnology dictates the need to search for markers of the nanoparticles effect on plants. Ultrastructural changes of chloroplast in leaf cells can serve as peculiar structural markers of the effect of various factors, including the effects of nanoparticles. Structural changes, along with physiological, biochemical, and molecular changes in photosynthetic apparatus, represent a complex adaptive response of plant to an external factor. In this study, for the first time, the effect of nanopriming using gold nanoparticles on structural reaction of chloroplast and level of transcripts of some genes of photosynthetic apparatus of two wheat varieties (Triticum aestivum L. var. Moskovskaya 39 and var. Zlata) was studied. Some of these structural and molecular changers under the influence of nanopriming were common to the two wheat varieties. Thus, the size of chloroplasts, the area of starch inclusions in them, the index of chloroplast stacking and level of psbB, psbH, Lhcb1 and Wcor15 transcripts were increased in both varieties of wheat under influence of nanopriming. Perhaps, after additional research, these changes can be considered as markers of gold nanoparticles effect.