Action of nanoparticles in the amelioration of heavy metal phytotoxicity

In past few years, there has been a revolution in nanotechnology in biomedical sciences for therapeutic and diagnostic purposes. In plant science also, it contributes in a significant role in combatting environmental threats. Globally, contamination of heavy metals (HMs) is a serious threat as they negatively influence agricultural productivity and human health by entering the food chain. Apart from the need to feed the ever-increasing world population [Now 8,000,000,000!], food safety has also become a major concern. Nanoparticles (NPs) have unique physicochemical properties, hence applied for HMs toxicity reduction. Since NPs have great potential for applications as small delivery systems to specific targets in organisms, these can be applied with metals to reduce damage in plants and release non-specific chemicals into the environment. Plants are the primary producers in ecosystems, and hence, understanding the interaction of NPs with metal stress is crucial to know the impact of nanomaterials on the ecosystem and food safety. In this short review, we have summarized recent publications from the last five years concerning the sources of heavy metals contamination, toxicity and defense mechanisms, occurrence, characterization, synthesis, transport of NPs, and interaction of HMs–NPs. For achieving sustainable agriculture for a rising world population, the development of HMs resistant crops with better quality is crucial. Therefore, a deep understanding of HMs–NPs interaction mechanisms is required so that it can be applied to crop improvement.