Photochemical reactions of poly(3-butoxythiophene-2,5-diyl) with chloroform under irradiation with light were studied. The reactions were separately carried out under air, oxygen, and nitrogen. The obtained results showed that this reaction belongs to the pseudo-first-order reaction with a rate constant k_obs of 1.4×10⁻⁵ s⁻¹ at room temperature. The presence or absence of air, oxygen, and nitrogen did not have obvious effects on the reaction rate under irradiation with light.

The potential biodegradation of crude oil was assessed based on the development of a fermentative process with a strain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa which produced 15.4 g/L rhamnolipids when cultured in a basal mineral medium using glycerol as a sole carbon source. However, neither cell growth nor rhamnolipid production was observed in the comparative culture system using crude oil as the sole carbon source instead. As rhamnolipid, an effective biosurfactant, has been reported to stimulate the biodegradation of hydrocarbons, 1 g/L glycerol or 0.22 g/L rhamnolipid was initially added into the medium to facilitate the biodegradation of crude oil. In both situations, more than 58% of crude oil was degraded and further converted into accumulated cell biomass and rhamnolipids. These results suggest that Pseudomonas aeruginosa could degrade most of crude oil with direct or indirect addition of rhamnolipid. And this conclusion was further supported by another adsorption experiment, where the adsorption capacity of crude oil by killed cell biomass was negligible in comparison with the biologic activities of live cell biomass.

Pencycuron is a non-systemic protective fungicide for controlling sheath blight of rice. However, information on the fate of pencycuron in rice plant is lacking. The degradation of pencycuron in waterlogged tropic rice field was investigated. Pencycuron was applied at recommended field dose (187.5 g a.i./ha) and double recommended dose to cropped plots for three consecutive years. Pencycuron was rapidly degraded in rice plant at all doses of pencycuron application with first order half-lives of 1.57~2.77 d. The study revealed that pencycuron is safe from the human and environmental contamination point of view.

A comparative study was made on the tissue specific expression of glutathione transferases (GST) in brain and testis after exposure of rat to phenobarbitol (PB) and b-methylcholanthrene (MC). Glutathione transferases, a family of multifunctional proteins are involved in intracellular transport processes and in detoxication of electrophilic xenobiotics by catalyzing reactions such as conjugation, isomerization, reduction and thiolysis. On purification, the yield of GST proteins by affinity chromatography was 39% in testis and 32% in brain. The affinity purified testis GSTs were resolved by chromatofocusing into six anionic and four cationic isozymes, and in brain glutathione transferases were resolved into four anionic and three cationic isozymes, suggesting the presence of multiple isozymes with Yc, Yb, Yβ and Yδ in both of them. In testis and brain, these isozymes at identical pI values showed variable functions with a battery of substrates and the cationic isozymes of brain and testis showed identical properties in CHP (cumene hydroperoxide) at pH values of above 7.0. Substrate specificity studies and immunoblot analysis of testis and brain proteins revealed that they play a predominant role in the detoxication of phenobarbitol or β-methylcholanthrene. Expression of the isozymes in testis and brain on exposure to PB and MC indicated elevated subunit variation. In both testis and brain, Yδ of π class was expressed on PB treatment and Yc of α class and Yβ of μ class was expressed in MC treated testis and only Yc was predominantly expressed in MC treated brain. Thus these subunits expression is considered as markers for carcinogenesis and specific to chemical toxicity under phenobarbitol and β-methylcholanthrene stress.

Fusarium head blight (FHB) caused by Fusarium graminearum is a devastating disease that results in extensive yield losses to wheat and barley. A green fluorescent protein (GFP) expressing plasmid pRP22-GFP was constructed for monitoring the colonization of two biocontrol agents, Brevibacillus brevis ZJY-1 and Bacillus subtilis ZJY-116, on the spikes of barley and their effect on suppression of FHB. Survival and colonization of the Brevibacillus brevis ZJY-1 and Bacillus subtilis ZJY-116 strains on spikes of barley were observed by tracking the bacterial transformants with GFP expression. Our field study revealed that plasmid pRP22-GFP was stably maintained in the bacterial strains without selective pressure. The retrieved GFP-tagged strains showed that the bacterial population fluctuation accorded with that of the rain events. Furthermore, both biocontrol strains gave significant protection against FHB on spikes of barley in fields. The greater suppression of barley FHB disease was resulted from the treatment of barley spikes with biocontrol agents before inoculation with F. graminearum.

The activities of enzymes responsible for lignification in pepper, pre-inoculation with arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungus of Glomus intraradices and/or infection with pathogenic strain of Phytophthora capsici, and the biological control effect of G. intraradices on Phytophthora blight in pepper were investigated. The experiment was carried out with four treatments: (1) plants pre-inoculated with G. intraradices (Gi), (2) plants pre-inoculated with G. intraradices and then infected with P. capsici (Gi+Pc), (3) plants infected with P. capsici (Pc), and (4) plants without any of the two microorganisms (C). Mycorrhizal colonization rate was reduced by about 10% in pathogen challenged plants. Root mortality caused by infection of P. capsici was completely eliminated by pre-inoculation with antagonistic G. intraradices. On the ninth day after pathogen infection, Peroxidase (POD) activity increased by 116.9% in Pc-treated roots but by only 21.2% in Gi+Pc-treated roots, compared with the control, respectively. Polyphenol oxidase (PPO) and Phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL) activities gradually increased during the first 3 d and dramatically decreased in Pc-treated roots but slightly decreased in Gi+Pc-treated roots, respectively. On the ninth day after pathogen infection, PPO and PAL decreased by 62.8% and 73.9% in Pc-treated roots but by only 19.8% and 19.5% in Gi+Pc-treated roots, compared with the control, respectively. Three major POD isozymes (45 000, 53 000 and 114 000) were present in Pc-treated roots, while two major bands (53 000 and 114 000) and one minor band (45 000) were present in spectra of Gi+Pc-treated roots, the 45 000 POD isozyme was significantly suppressed by G. intraradices, suggesting that the 45 000 POD isozyme was induced by the pathogen infection but not induced by the antagonistic G. intraradices. A 60 000 PPO isozyme was induced in Pc-treated roots but not induced in Gi+Pc-treated roots. All these results showed the inoculation of antagonistic G. intraradices alleviates root mortality, activates changes of lignification-related enzymes and induces some of the isozymes in pepper plants infected by P. capsici. The results suggested that G. intraradices is a potentially effective protection agent against P. capsici.

Effects of dietary supplementation with fructooligosaccharides on the excretion of nitrogen and phosphorus in Miichthys miiuy fries were investigated. Nine hundred Miichthys miiuy fries were divided into 3 groups, each with triplicates. The basal diet and the basal diet supplemented with carnitine groups were considered as the negative and positive controls respectively. Results showed that the nitrogen concentration in excreted feces decreased significantly in fries fed the diet supplementation with 1000×10⁻⁶ fructooligosaccharides and 200×10⁻⁶ carnitine (P<0.05). The ammonic-nitrogen concentration decreased significantly in the carnitine group only (P<0.05), indicating the decreasing tendency caused by the supplementation with fructooligosaccharides. Supplementation with both did not have significant effects on the concentration of phosphorus in feces of Miichthys miiuy fries.

Total RNA was isolated from the hybridoma cell line (LC-1), which secretes anti-lung adenocarcinoma monoclonal antibody, and was transferred into cDNA. Based on the FR1 (framework region 1) and FR4 conserved regions of LC-1 gene, the variable regions of heavy chain (Vh) and light chain (Vl) were amplified, and the Vh and modified Vl were connected to single chain Fv (ScFv) by SOE-PCR (splice overlap extension PCR). The modified ScFv was fused with green fluorescent protein (GFP) and introduced into E. coli JM109. The fusion protein induced by IPTG (Isopropylthiogalactoside) was about 57000 on a 10% SDS-PAGE gel (10% Sds Polyacrylamide Gel Electrophoresis), and primarily manifested as inclusion bodies. The renatured protein purified by Ni-NTA Superflow resins showed ability to bind to antigen on SPC-A-1 lung adenocarcinoma. In addition, the induced host cells fluoresced bright green under 395 nm wavelength, which indicated that the expected protein with dual activity was expressed in the prokaryotic system. The ScFv with GFP tag used in this research can be applied as a new reagent to detect immunological dye, and provide a feasible way to detect adenocarcinoma in a clinical setting.

In near-infrared (NIR) analysis of plant extracts, excessive background often exists in near-infrared spectra. The detection of active constituents is difficult because of excessive background, and correction of this problem remains difficult. In this work, the orthogonal signal correction (OSC) method was used to correct excessive background. The method was also compared with several classical background correction methods, such as offset correction, multiplicative scatter correction (MSC), standard normal variate (SNV) transformation, de-trending (DT), first derivative, second derivative and wavelet methods. A simulated dataset and a real NIR spectral dataset were used to test the efficiency of different background correction methods. The results showed that OSC is the only effective method for correcting excessive background.