Two of the most widely used nanoparticles (NPs) accumulate in soybeans — second only to corn as a key food crop in the United States — in ways previously shown to have the potential to adversely affect the crop yields and nutritional quality, a new study has found. It appears in the journal ACS Nano.

Jorge L. Gardea-Torresdey and colleagues cite rapid increases in commercial and industrial uses of NPs, the building blocks of a nanotechnology industry projected to put $1 trillion worth of products on the market by 2015. Zinc oxide and cerium dioxide are among today’s most widely used NPs. Both are used in cosmetics, lotions, sunscreens and other products. They eventually go down the drain, through municipal sewage treatment plants, and wind up in the sewage sludge that some farmers apply to crops as fertilizer. Gardea-Torresdey’s team previously showed that soybean plants grown in hydroponic solutions accumulated zinc and cerium dioxide in ways that alter plant growth and could have health implications.

Soybean plants grown in actual farm soil accumulate nanoparticles in ways that suggest potential health implications. Photo credit: iStockphoto/Thinkstock

The question remained, however, as to whether such accumulation would occur in the real-world conditions in which farmers grow soybeans in soil, rather than nutrient solution. Other important questions included the relationship of soybean plants and NPs, the determination of their entrance into the food chain, their biotransformation and toxicity and the possible persistence of these products into the next plant generation. Their new study, performed at two world-class synchrotron facilities — the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France, addressed those questions. “To our knowledge, this is the first report on the presence of cerium dioxide and zinc compounds in the reproductive/edible portions of the soybean plant grown in farm soil with cerium dioxide and zinc oxide nanoparticles. In addition, our results have shown that cerium dioxide NPs in soil can be taken up by food crops and are not biotransformed in soybeans. This suggests that cerium dioxide NPs can reach the food chain and the next soybean plant generation, with potential health implications,” the study notes.

The authors acknowledge financial support from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.