Catalytic Scavenging of Plant Reactive Oxygen Species In Vivo by Anionic Cerium Oxide Nanoparticles

The ability of cerium oxide nanoparticles to catalytically scavenge reactive oxygen species in vivo provides a unique tool to understand and engineer mechanisms of plant signaling and tolerance to stress. Reactive oxygen species play a key role in plants by acting as signal molecules at low levels and damaging molecules at high levels. The main advantage of this technique is the potential to be applied to diverse wild type plant species with broad leaves and leaf structure, like Arabidopsis thaliana.

After growing the Arabidopsis thaliana plants, weigh out 1.08 grams of Cerium nitrate and dissolve it in 2.5 milliliters of biology-grade water in a 50-milliliter conical tube. Weigh out 4.5 grams of Poly acid and dissolve it in five milliliters of biology-grade water in a different 50-milliliter conical tube. Combine these two solutions and then use a digital vortex mixer to mix them thoroughly at 2, 000 rpm for 15 minutes.