Diagnosis of Bacterial Plant Diseases via a Nitroreductase-Activated Fluorescent Sensor

Abstract

Plant diseases caused by bacteria have become one of the serious problems that threaten human food security, which led to the remarkable reduction of agricultural yields and economic loss. Nitroreductase (NTR), as an important biomarker, is highly expressed in bacteria, and the level of NTR is closely related to the progression of pathogen infection. Therefore, the design of smallmolecule fluorescent sensors targeting NTR is of great significance for the detection and diagnosis of plant pathogenic bacteria. In this study, a new fluorescent sensor targeting NTR was discovered and then successfully applied to the imaging of zebraf ish and pathogenic bacteria. Most importantly, the developed sensor achieved the real-time diagnosis of Brassica napus L. infected with bacteria, which provides a promising tool for examining the temporal and spatial infection of plant pathogens in precision agriculture.

A fluorescent probe for imaging nitroreductase with signal amplification in high-viscosity environments

“…40,41 As an essential biomarker for bacterial detection, NTR is also highly expressed in many bacteria. 42 In addition, the positive charge of the thiazolium portion of ENBT could be targeted not only to the mitochondria but also to the negative charge on the bacterial surface. 43 Encouraged by the cell imaging results, ENBT was further applied to image NTR in Staphylococcus aureus ( S. aureus ).…”

Photocontrolled Release of Carbendazim from Photocaged Molecule

“…As the research moves along, photocaged groups have been applied in many fields, covering materials chemistry, biology, medicine and pesticide (2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11). In agriculture chemistry，fluorescent probe was used for noninvasive imaging and pathogens detection in plant tissues (12)(13)(14)(15). Under the irradiation of light with specific wavelengths, the lightcontrolled molecule formed by covalent combination of photocaged group and target molecule, which can realize the spatiotemporal orientation release of target molecule (16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22).…”

Supramolecular Host–Guest Strategy for the Accelerating Detection of Nitroreductase

“…According to the "ping-pong" mechanism and it is correspondingly Michaelis−Menten equation, the emission intensity of probe rarely shows a distinct and stable linear relationship with the enzyme content when being in an unfixed NADH concentration. The interference of cofactor concentration can be decreased noticeably during the "ping-pong" double substrates reaction process only if there is large excess of NADH, 18 and the detection results would be obtained more quickly and precisely. Such requirements are extremely challenging for the traditional small molecule fluorescent probes to perform the efficient fast detection in cells.…”