Fluorescent carbon dots (CDs) have been widely studied in bioscience and bioimaging, but the effect of CDs on plants has been rarely studied. Herein, mung bean was adopted as a model plant to study the phytotoxicity, uptake, and translocation of red emissive CDs in plants. The incubation with CDs at a concentration range from 0.1 to 1.0 mg/mL induced physiological response of mung bean plant and imposed no phytotoxicity on mung bean growth. The lengths of the root and stem presented an increasing trend up to the treatment of 0.4 mg/mL. Confocal imaging showed that CDs were transferred from the roots to the stems and leaves by the vascular system through the apoplastic pathway. The uptake kinetics study was performed and demonstrated that the CDs were abundantly incubated by mung beans during both germination and growth periods. Furthermore, in vivo visualization of CDs provides potential for their successful application as delivery vehicles in plants based on the unique optical properties.
Keywords: bioimaging; carbon dots; fluorescent; mung bean; phytotoxicity.