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In-situ monitoring of pesticide residues during crop growth or/and in related products is of great significance in avoiding the abuse of pesticides but remains challenging thus far. In this report, we proposed a background-free surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (bf-SERS) platform to non-destructively track the nitrile-bearing pesticide residues in soybean leaves with high sensitivity and selectivity. The outstanding feature of the assay stems from the dramatic Raman enhancement effect of the 50 nm-sized gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) towards the pesticides and simultaneously the background-free Raman signal of the nitrile group in the so-called Raman-silent region (1800–2800 cm‒1). This bf-SERS assay was applied to evaluate the penetration effects of nitrile-bearing pesticides and monitor their residues in soybean leaves after rinsing with various solutions, providing a reliable tool for guiding the safe use of nitrile-bearing pesticides in agriculture.

Class A saponins are responsible for the taste of soybean products, and the rapid identification of class A saponins from soybean food is essential for both food safety and cultivar screening. In this study, we propose a colorimetric assay based on the coupling of gap ligase chain reaction (Gap-LCR) with DNAzyme to detect the target GmSg-1 genes of class A soybean saponins with the naked eye, without the involvement of expensive instruments. The limits of detection (LODs) for the GmSg-1a and GmSg-1b genes were determined to be 0.1618 and 0.1625 μM, respectively, with a linear range of 0.2-1.2 μM. The DNAzyme-based Gap LCR assay was successfully employed to identify the target genes from different soybean cultivars, providing a simple means for monitoring the quality of soybean products.

Soybean saponin is one of the important secondary metabolites in seeds, which has various beneficial physiological functions to human health. GmSg-1 gene is the key enzyme gene for synthesizing class A saponins. It is of great significance to realize the visual and rapid detection of class A saponins at the genetic level. The hybridization chain reaction (HCR) was employed to the visual detection of GmSg-1 gene, which was implemented by changing the length of the target fragment to 92 bp and using the hairpin probes we designed to detect the GmSg-1a and GmSg-1b genes. The best condition of HCR reaction is hemin (1.2 μM), Triton X-100 (0.002%), ABTS (3.8 μM), and H2O2 (1.5 mM). It was found that HCR has high specificity for GmSg-1 gene and could be applied to the visual detection of different soybean cultivars containing Aa type, Ab type, and Aa/Ab type saponins, which could provide technical reference and theoretical basis for molecular breeding of soybean and development of functional soybean products.

The new polypyridyl ligands L1 and L2 {L1 =4,4′-oxybis(N,N-bis(pyridin- 2-ylmethyl)aniline); L2 = 4-methyl-N, N-bis(pyridin- 2-ylmethyl)aniline} and three relevant di-, mono-nucleating Cu(II) complexes [Cu2L1Cl4]2 (1), [CuL2Cl2]2•4H2O (2) and [Cu2(L2)2(μ-Cl)2] (ClO4)2 (3) have been synthesized as anticancer agents. The chemical nuclease activities of complexes have been explored by using UV-Vis, fluorescence emission spectroscopies and agarose gel electrophoresis techniques. Importantly, the MTT and colony-forming assay indicate that the complex 1 show promising cytotoxicity against HeLa cells with IC50 = 10.6 ± 1.9 μM (10.8 ± 2.2, for cisplatin). Cytotoxicity was also measured on human normal cell line HUVEC, the results indicate that complexes 1-3 are all less cytotoxic than the control cisplatin. The apoptosis-inducing activity of 1 was assessed by hoechst 33342 staining, annexin V binding, cell cycle analyses, intracellular ROS generation and comet assay.

Two new mono- and di-nuclear polypyridyl copper complexes [CuL1Br2]2·CH3OH (1) and [Cu2L2Br4]·(DMF)2·H2O (2) were synthesized and characterized by X-ray crystallography, elemental analysis, IR and HR-MS. The structure–activity relationship was comparative studied regarding the nuclease activity and cytotoxicity of the two complexes. According to the results of nuclease activity studies, we found the synergic effect between dinuclear ligand and copper ions as well as the flexibility of the mononuclear ligand and copper ions. The anticancer activities of the complexes towards three human tumor cells lines (HeLa, HepG-2 and SGC-7901) showed that both 1 and 2 exhibt observably inhibitory activity. Especially to HepG-2, IC50 values are obvious less to the clinically-used cisplatin. Cytotoxicity test on human normal cell line HUVEC indicate that both complexes 1 and 2 are less cytotoxic than the control cisplatin. Further in-depth research of complex 2 with HeLa cell line for the anticancer investigation, including colony formation assay, apoptosis evaluation and cell cycle analysis were carried out. The results showed that complex 2 could effectively inhibit the proliferation and induce apoptosis via ROS-triggered pathway of HeLa cells.

The additive and epistatic effects and their genotype × environment (GE) effects on percentage gain with physiological traits under different environments were analyzed in soybean. The genetic characters of physiological traits in soybean and characters of quantitative trait loci (QTL) detected in different environments are discussed. A backcross inbred line (BIL) population of soybean derived from the cross of strong drought tolerant wild soybean, “SNWS0048” as a recipient parent and drought-sensitive variety “Jinda73” as a donor parent was examined to identify the QTL and epistatic QTL and GE effects on drought-tolerant physiological traits in Shanxi, China, in 2008 and 2010. Six QTLs with additive (a) effects and/or additive × environment interaction (ae) effects and three pairs of QTLs with additive × epistatic main (aa) and/or epistasis × environment interaction (aae) effects were detected in different water environment over two years. Six QTLs with a effects and/or ae effects were mapped to linkage ...