Carbon nanotubes (CNT) can intracellulary traffic through different cellular barriers
and deliver biomolecules into living cells. However, their use in plants is limited
by the cellulosic wall surrounding the plant cell. Here we show that CNT with
immobilized cellulase can serve as an efficient DNA delivery system for plant cells.
Tracking the cellular fate of nanotubes revealed two novel phenomena: (1)A possible
nuclear localization and (2)When the transfected cell decides to differentiate into
tracheary cell (water conducting cell), nanotubes were observed to incorporate into
cellular structure. Our work aims at methodological development that paves the way
toward on-chip-nanoscale-gene delivery applications.