Carbon nanoparticles enhance potassium uptake via upregulating potassium channel expression and imitating biological ion channels in BY-2 cells

BACKGROUND: Carbon nanoparticles (CNPs) have been reported to boost plant growth, while the mechanism that CNPs enhanced potassium uptake for plant growth has not been reported so far. RESULTS: In this study, the function that CNPs promoted potassium uptake in BY-2 cells was established and the potassium accumulated in cells had a significant correlation with the fresh biomass of BY-2 cells. The K(+) accumulation in cells increased with the increasing concentration of CNPs. The K(+) influx reached high level after treatment with CNPs and was significantly higher than that of the control group and the negative group treated with K(+) channels blocker, tetraethylammonium chloride (TEA(+)). The K(+) accumulation was not reduced in the presence of CNPs inhibitors. In the presence of potassium channel blocker TEA(+) or CNPs inhibitors, the NKT1 gene expression was changed compared with the control group. The CNPs were found to preferentially transport K(+) than other cations determined by rectification of ion current assay (RIC) in a conical nanocapillary. CONCLUSIONS: These results indicated that CNPs upregulated potassium gene expression to enhance K(+) accumulation in BY-2 cells. Moreover, it was speculated that the CNPs simulated protein of ion channels via bulk of carboxyl for K(+) permeating. These findings will provide support for improving plant growth by carbon nanoparticles.