Fungicide-loaded mesoporous silica nanoparticles promote rice seedling growth by regulating amino acid metabolic pathways

Mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSN) are widely researched as carriers for pesticides (including fungicides, insecticides and herbicides) to improve their effective utilization rate in the target plant. However, pesticides enter the target crops and may bring some impacts on the growth and physiological function of plants. When they are loaded to nanoparticles, different effects on the metabolic properties of target plants will be produced. In this study, thifluzamide-loaded MSN was prepared with average diameter of 80–120 nm. Rice seedlings were exposed for 7 days to different treatments of MSN, thifluzamide, and thifluzamide-loaded MSN. After treatment, non-targeted metabolomic method was employed to explore the metabolic pathways. It was found that the negative effect of thifluzamide to rice seedling was alleviated by thifluzamide-loaded MSN, since it increased amino acid metabolic pathways, which improved purine and pyrimidine metabolism and induced the production of total protein. Thifluzamide-loaded MSN can also relieve the damage of thifluzamide to rice seedlings by altering the chlorophyll, phenols and flavonoids content. In conclusion, it was proposed that the mechanism of fungicide-loaded MSN prevent plant from negative effects of fungicides by regulating the amino acid metabolic pathways.