Physiological and histochemical effects of synthesized carbon nanodots in Triticum aestivum L. cv. Golia

The aim of the present study is to evaluate the effects of synthesized carbon nanodot concentrations on some physiological and histochemical parameters in T. aestivum L. cv. Golia. We synthesized carbon nanodots from tangerine juice by using hydrothermal method. For microstructural characterization, we applied XRD and TEM analyzes. The XRD and TEM analyzes show that carbon nanodot was synthesized successfully. The modeling of carbon nanodots was done by using Density Functional Theory (DFT) method to examine the structure at the level of nano or atomic scale. According to the obtained results, the peaks in the DOS analysis are very intense. The high peaks in the DOS analysis indicate that carbon nanodots are unstable and may have ability to react with many inorganic materials in the plant. Before the experiment, the seeds were sterilized with 5% sodium hypochloride solution for 15 min, and washed with sterile water three times. Three replicas of 20 seeds for each synthesized carbon nanodot treatment, or for the control, non-treated seeds, were placed on two layers of filter paper in 120 mm sterile petri dishes. The seeds were moistened with distilled water for controls and with aqueous solutions for each treatment (25, 50, 100, 250, 500 and 1000 mg/L). The petri dishes were incubated in a growth chamber. Net findings, the applications negatively affected the root and shoot developments. Non-protein SH groups and H2O2 contents were found to increase with the applied synthesized carbon nanodot concentrations. Similarly, malondialdehyde contents showed an increase in the effect of carbon nanodot concentrations. In order to assess the existence of oxidative stress in wheat roots due to carbon nanodot application, histochemical analyses were performed. In particular, the staining in roots following high concentrations were observed. Therefore findings prove the carbon nanodot induced oxidative damage in wheat tissues.