ABSTRACT
Advancement in the field of plant genetic engineering has been proven to be an important tool for improving crop productivity, stress tolerance, and enhancement of secondary metabolite content in medicinal plants for sustainable agriculture. Genetic transformation of plant cells is a challenging task due to the rigid structure of cell walls. Nanomaterial-based genetic transformation of plant cells has been demonstrated to produce transient as well as stable transformants. The major advantage of nanomaterial-based transformation is its species non-specificity, unlike Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. The most widely used nanomaterials for genetic transformation are carbon-based, silicon-based, and metal nanoparticles, layered double hydroxide, DNA nanostructures, liposomes, and nano-polymers. In this chapter, reported nanomaterial-based transformation techniques have been discussed in detail along with their application in transgenic plant research. This chapter also provides an insight into challenges involved in nanomaterial-based transformation along with its comparison with traditional genetic transformation methods.
