Silica nanoparticle minimizes aluminium imposed injuries by impeding cytotoxic agents and over expressing protective genes in Cicer arietinum

Nanoparticles (NPs) and nano-technological applications in varied economic sectors including agriculture, accomplished great attention in last decades, worldwide. In several instances, NPs has been applied as pre-treatment or toxicant scavenging agent for promoting seed germination/ plant growth responses or for abiotic stress amelioration. In order to promote this propensity, the development of sustainable eco-friendly processes for NP production is of utmost importance. In this study, silica NPs (SiNP) were synthesized following both chemical and biological (green) procedures, and were tested for their ameliorative efficacies against aluminium (Al)induced toxicity in Cicer arietinwn. Synthesized NPs were initially characterized following standard methods such as dynamic light scattering/ zetasizer, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and UV-vis spectroscopy. Experimental results revealed that upon Al-exposure, growth traits and plasma membrane stability of C. arietinum were severely repressed along with increased accumulations of reactive oxygen species and malondialdehyde (an outcome of lipid peroxidation reaction), with consequent decline in the activities/ expression profiles of key defensive genes. However, exogenously applied SiNPs provided tolerance to growing C. arietinum against Al-toxicity by compensating the cellular redox homeostasis via enhancing the levels/ expression patterns of antioxidants genes and reducing cytotoxic products of lipid peroxidation. Both chemical and green manufactured SiNPs were ascertained as efficient ameliorating agents against Al-stress, at least for C. arietinum, but the green synthesized were proven to be comparatively more proficient in mitigating injury symptoms, even in relatively low concentration than the chemically manufactured particles.