Relaxation of the Plant Cell Wall Barrier via Zwitterionic Liquid Pretreatment for Micelle-Complex-Mediated DNA Delivery to Specific Plant Organelles

Abstract

Targeted delivery of genes to specific plant organelles is a key challenge for fundamental plant science, plant bioengineering, and agronomic applications. Nanoscale carriers have attracted interest as a promising tool for organelle-targeted DNA delivery in plants. However, nanocarrier-mediated DNA delivery in plants is severely hampered by the barrier of the plant cell wall, resulting in insufficient delivery efficiency. Herein, we propose a unique strategy that synergistically combines a cell wall-loosening zwitterionic liquid (ZIL) with a peptide-displaying micelle complex for organelle-specific DNA delivery in plants. We demonstrated that ZIL pretreatment can enhance cell wall permeability without cytotoxicity, allowing micelle complexes to translocate across the cell wall and carry DNA cargo into specific plant organelles, such as nuclei and chloroplasts, with significantly augmented efficiency. Our work offers a novel concept to overcome the plant cell wall barrier for nanocarrier-mediated cargo delivery to specific organelles in living plants.