Plant genetic engineering is an important tool used in current efforts in crop improvement, pharmaceutical product biosynthesis and sustainable agriculture. However, conventional genetic engineering techniques target the nuclear genome, prompting concerns about the proliferation of foreign genes to weedy relatives. Chloroplast transformation does not have this limitation, since the plastid genome is maternally inherited in most plants, motivating the need for organelle-specific and selective nanocarriers. Here, we rationally designed chitosan-complexed single-walled carbon nanotubes, utilizing the lipid exchange envelope penetration mechanism. The single-walled carbon nanotubes selectively deliver plasmid DNA to chloroplasts of different plant species without external biolistic or chemical aid. We demonstrate chloroplast-targeted transgene delivery and transient expression in mature Eruca sativa, Nasturtium officinale, Nicotiana tabacum and Spinacia oleracea plants and in isolated Arabidopsis thaliana mesophyll protoplasts. This nanoparticle-mediated chloroplast transgene delivery tool provides practical advantages over current delivery techniques as a potential transformation method for mature plants to benefit plant bioengineering and biological studies.

植物基因工程是当前作物改良、医药产品生物合成和可持续农业的重要工具。然而，传统的基因工程技术以核基因组为目标，引发了人们对外来基因向杂草亲戚扩散的担忧。叶绿体转化没有这种限制，因为大多数植物中质体基因组是母系遗传的，这就激发了对细胞器特异性和选择性纳米载体的需求。在这里，我们利用脂质交换包膜渗透机制合理设计了壳聚糖复合单壁碳纳米管。单壁碳纳米管可选择性地将质粒 DNA 递送至不同植物物种的叶绿体，无需外部生物射弹或化学辅助。我们在成熟的芥菜、旱金莲、烟草和菠菜植物以及分离的拟南芥叶肉原生质体中证明了叶绿体靶向转基因递送和瞬时表达。这种纳米颗粒介导的叶绿体转基因递送工具比目前的递送技术具有实际优势，作为成熟植物的潜在转化方法，有利于植物生物工程和生物学研究。