Removal of heavy metal ions and anionic dyes from aqueous solutions using amide-functionalized cellulose-based adsorbents.

An efficient, ecofriendly, amide-functionalized cellulose-based porous adsorbent was synthesized by a cross-linking reaction between cellulose filament fibers and bisacrylamide at room temperature. This process is simple, fast and inexpensive, and has significant potential for industrial applications. The prepared material has numerous adsorption sites, resulting in the highly efficient removal of anionic dyes and copper ions from aqueous media. The maximum adsorption capacities of this cellulose-based adsorbent for the dyes Acid Black 1 and Acid Red 18 and for copper ions were 751.8, 417.9, and 51.3 mg g-1, respectively. Regeneration experiments showed that the removal efficiencies for all model pollutants remained above 92 % after five consecutive recycling trials. These results indicate that amide-functionalized cellulose-based adsorbents could possibly be used to treat industrial wastewaters.

iTRAQ-based quantitative proteomic analysis in vernalization-treated faba bean (Vicia faba L.).

Vernalization is classically defined as the induction of flowering process by exposure of the plants to a prolonged cold condition. Normally, it is considered as a precondition of flowering. Vicia faba, commonly known as faba bean, belongs to family Fabaceae. It is one of the plant species that has been cultivated in the earliest human settlements. In this study, an iTRAQ-LC-MS/MS-based quantitative proteomic analysis has been conducted to compare the vernalized faba bean seedlings and its corresponding control. In total, 91 proteins from various functional categories were observed to be differentially accumulated in vernalized faba bean seedlings. Subsequent gene ontology analysis indicated that several biological processes or metabolic pathways including photosynthesis and phytic acid metabolism were differentially respond to vernalization in comparison to the control sample. Further investigation revealed that a family of proteins nominated as glycine-rich RNA-binding factor was accumulated in vernalized seedlings, indicating an extra layer of regulation by alternative splicing on transcript abundance in response to vernalization. These findings raise a possibility that these candidate proteins could be important to represent the responsive network under vernalization process. Therefore, we propose that the regulation of vernalization in faba bean not only occurs at the transcriptional level as previously reported, but also at the post-transcriptional level.

Development of immune-affinity 96 spots monolith array for multiple mycotoxins detection in food samples.

In this paper, a novel highly sensitive chemiluminescence immune-affinity 96 spots monolith array was developed to detect deoxynivalenol (DON), zearalenone (ZEN), T-2 toxin (T-2), and fumonisin B1 (FB1) in corn samples. Firstly, the monolith array was prepared through on suit UV-initiated copolymerization using polyethylene glycol diacrylate (PEGDA) as cross-linker, glycidyl methacrylate (GMA) as functional monomer and polyethylene glycol 200 (PEG 200) as the porogen. Subsequently, the four mycotoxins immune-affinity monolith array was prepared by immobilization of DON, ZEN, T-2, and FB1 antibody. The mole ratio of PEGDA/GMA, UV exposure time, and the volume ratio of PEG 200/PEGDA were optimized to improve the performances of the immune-affinity monolith array. For the mycotoxins immune-affinity monolith array based on chemiluminescence detection, the limit of detection was 0.0036ng/mL (DON), 0.0048ng/mL (ZEN), 0.0039ng/mL (T-2), and 0.0017ng/mL (FB1), respectively. The linear response in the range of 0.01-0.1ng/mL (R(2)=0.98). The results showed that the proposed four mycotoxins immune-affinity monolith array was a stable, accurate, and highly sensitive method to determine levels of DON, ZEN, T-2, and FB1 in real samples.