Interaction Between Nanoparticles and Phytopathogens

Nanotechnology has been acknowledged recently for its diversified use in the field of science including agriculture, food industry, medicine, and cosmetics. Environment and earth are being constantly exposed to nanomaterials because they are fabricated to be utilized in agribusiness, food, pharmaceuticals, personal care items as well as in biotechnology. Nanoparticle–microbe interaction performs a pivotal role in treatment of various diseases as in case of antimicrobial agents. The potential implementations of nanomaterials are being extensively researched in the field of agriculture, not only as therapeutic options to prevent phytopathogen growth in host plants, but also for early pathogenic symptoms detections and eliciting immune responses. Bacteria, fungi, virus, and other virulent pathogens through their efficient survival strategies and overcoming phyto-defenses confer to overall deterioration of food-crop produce that may sum up to 10–40%. To overcome such challenging situations, there has been constant development and application of engineered agro-nanomaterials. These may affect plant–microbe interactions in different ways. The inhibitory potential of nanoparticles against different microbial growth mainly involves release and interaction of metal ions with cell components that occur through different pathways including reactive oxygen species production, formation of pores in cell-membranes, cell wall and DNA damage, and cell-cycle arrest. The article deals with different plant pathogens, their mechanisms of phyto-pathogenesis followed by detailed responses of nanoparticle interactions with different microbes and their role in phytopathogen suppression.