A team of scientists from the University of California and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has found a way to infuse plants with the luminescence of fireflies. The results appear in the journal Nano Letters.
Plants infused with the luminescence of fireflies could help reduce our dependence on conventional lighting. Image credit: Seon-Yeong Kwak.
By embedding specialized nanoparticles into the leaves of the watercress (Nasturtium officinale), MIT Professor Michael Strano and colleagues induced the plants to give off dim light for nearly 4 hours.
The researchers believe that, with further optimization, such plants will one day be bright enough to illuminate a workspace.
“Nature has produced many bioluminescent organisms, however, plants are not among them,” they said.
“Most attempts so far to create glowing greenery — decorative tobacco plants in particular — have relied on introducing the genes of luminescent bacteria or fireflies through genetic engineering.”
“But getting all the right components to the right locations within the plants has been a challenge.”
“To gain better control over where light-generating ingredients end up, we recently created nanoparticles that travel to specific destinations within plants.”
“Building on this work, we wanted to take the next step and develop a ‘nanobionic’ glowing plant.”
The scientists infused watercress and other plants with three different nanoparticles in a pressurized bath.
The nanoparticles were loaded with an enzyme that gives fireflies their glow and and coenzyme A, which boosts the enzyme’s activity.
Using size and surface charge to control where the sets of nanoparticles could go within the plant tissues, they could optimize how much light was emitted.
Their watercress was half as bright as a commercial 1 microwatt LED and 100,000 times brighter than genetically engineered tobacco plants.
Also, the plant could be turned off by adding a compound that blocks light-emitting nanoparticles.
“The vision is to make a plant that will function as a desk lamp — a lamp that you don’t have to plug in,” Professor Strano said.
“The light is ultimately powered by the energy metabolism of the plant itself.”
“Plants can self-repair, they have their own energy, and they are already adapted to the outdoor environment,” he added.
“We think this is an idea whose time has come. It’s a perfect problem for plant nanobionics.”
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Seon-Yeong Kwak et al. 2017. A Nanobionic Light-Emitting Plant. Nano Letters 17 (12): 7951-7961; doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.7b04369
