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Foliar Application of Red-Emitting Carbon Dots Promotes Melatonin Biosynthesis and K+ Homeostasis Enhancing Drought
Zhiyuan Pan1, Zhaoxia Liao1, Chengkang Xue1
1The Key Laboratory of Biotechnology for Medicinal Plants of Jiangsu Province, School of Life Sciences, Jiangsu Normal University, Xuzhou, Jiangsu 221116, China.
Abstract:
While red light positively regulates crop physiology in agriculture, the application of light signaling-based red-emitting carbon dots (RCDs) to enhance field crop stress resistance remains underexplored. RCDs were hydrothermally synthesized and foliarly applied to sweetpotato under drought stress (10% PEG). Their photoluminescence (PL) activated the root melatonin (MT) biosynthesis gene IbASMT1, elevating MT levels by ∼2.5-fold. This MT surge upregulated the K+ regulator gene IbSKOR through IbGCN5-mediated histone acetylation; IbSKOR overexpression confirmed its drought-tolerance role. Critically, the MT inhibitor p-chlorophenylalanine or PL-quenched RCDs abolished this effect, confirming PL's essentiality. The core IbASMT1-MT-IbGCN5 module fine-tuned K+ homeostasis by upregulating IbAKT1 and IbSKOR. Our findings identified RCDs as effective photosignal modulators for crop drought tolerance via an MT-dependent epigenetic pathway, providing a novel carbon dot-based agro-technology strategy.
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