China Agricultural University Develops Multi-functional Nano-Lentinan Polysaccharide Preparation to Prevent and Control Plant Viral Diseases

08/12/2025 10:36:54

On October 5, 2024, the team led by Shen Jie and Yan Shuo from China Agricultural University published a research achievement titled "Nanomaterial inactivates environmental virus and enhances plant immunity for controlling tobacco mosaic virus disease" in Nature Communications. The team successfully developed a multifunctional nano-lentinan preparation, which can effectively reduce the content of tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) in the environment and simultaneously induce antiviral immune responses in plants.
Tobacco mosaic virus is a highly pathogenic and environmentally adaptable plant virus, with over 350 common host plants. It can survive in natural environments for 30-50 years and still retain infectivity even after being diluted a million times. Infection leads to symptoms such as mosaic, shrinkage, and necrosis of leaves, severely affecting plant photosynthesis and subsequently causing a significant decrease in yield, resulting in substantial economic losses.
Researchers utilized star-shaped polycationic nanocarriers (SPc) to spontaneously assemble lentinan through hydrogen bonding, forming a nanoscale LNT/SPc complex (140nm). SPc significantly improved the wettability of lentinan on the leaf surface, reducing the contact angle and increasing the retention amount, making the LNT/SPc complex exhibit better adhesion to the leaf surface and plant absorption properties, and allowing it to enter plant cells more rapidly, facilitating cellular absorption. RNA-seq analysis revealed that the LNT/SPc complex could significantly upregulate the expression of various genes related to plant defense responses, effectively activating the plant's defense mechanism. In addition, the LNT/SPc complex could increase the content of salicylic acid (SA) in plants and enhance the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT), further amplifying the antiviral response of plants. Both indoor and field tests showed that the LNT/SPc complex had significant preventive and therapeutic effects on tobacco mosaic virus, achieving a field efficacy of up to 81.9% 14 days after application.
In addition, SPc also induces aggregation and inactivation of viral particles through electrostatic interactions with the coat protein of TMV. Under the action of 1 mg/L SPc or LNT/SPc complex, TMV particles significantly aggregate, and almost all TMV particles are completely inactivated at a concentration of 10 mg/L. The LNT/SPc complex developed in this study can significantly reduce the number of TMV particles in soil, induce antiviral responses in plants, and fully demonstrate the "control-promotion" role of nanomaterials in the field of disease prevention and control. This innovative mechanism provides new ideas for long-term prevention and control of viral diseases such as TMV.