Recent advances in the biomolecules mediated synthesis of nanoclusters for food safety analysis.

The development of nanoclusters based on incorporating biomolecules like proteins, lipids, enzymes, DNA, surfactants, and chemical stabilizers creates a stable and high fluorescence bio-sensors promising future due to their high sensitivity, high level of detection and better selectivity. This review addresses a comprehensive and systematic overview of the recent development in synthesizing metal nanocluster by various strategized synthesis techniques. Significantly, the application of nanometal clusters for the detection of various food contaminants such as microorganisms, antibodies, drugs, pesticides, metal contaminants, amino acids, and other food flavors have been discussed briefly concerning the detection techniques, sensitivity, selectivity, and lower limit of detection. The review further gives a brief account on the future prospects in the synthesis of novel metal nanocluster-based biosensors, and their advantages, shortcomings, and potential perspectives toward their application in the field of food safety analysis.

Recent advancement in nano-optical strategies for detection of pathogenic bacteria and their metabolites in food safety.

Pathogenic bacteria and their metabolites are the leading risk factor in food safety and are one of the major threats to human health because of the capability of triggering diseases with high morbidity and mortality. Nano-optical sensors for bacteria sensing have been greatly explored with the emergence of nanotechnology and artificial intelligence. In addition, with the rapid development of cross fusion technology, other technologies integrated nano-optical sensors show great potential in bacterial and their metabolites sensing. This review focus on nano-optical strategies for bacteria and their metabolites sensing in the field of food safety; based on surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), fluorescence, and colorimetric biosensors, and their integration with the microfluidic platform, electrochemical platform, and nucleic acid amplification platform in the recent three years. Compared with the traditional techniques, nano optical-based sensors have greatly improved the sensitivity with reduced detection time and cost. However, challenges remain for the simple fabrication of biosensors and their practical application in complex matrices. Thus, bringing out improvements or novelty in the pretreatment methods will be a trend in the upcoming future.

Recent progress on graphene quantum dots-based fluorescence sensors for food safety and quality assessment applications.

The versatile photophysicalproperties, high surface-to-volume ratio, superior photostability, higher biocompatibility, and availability of active sites make graphene quantum dots (GQDs) an ideal candidate for applications in sensing, bioimaging, photocatalysis, energy storage, and flexible electronics. GQDs-based sensors involve luminescence sensors, electrochemical sensors, optical biosensors, electrochemical biosensors, and photoelectrochemical biosensors. Although plenty of sensing strategies have been developed using GQDs for biosensing and environmental applications, the use of GQDs-based fluorescence techniques remains unexplored or underutilized in the field of food science and technology. To the best of our knowledge, comprehensive review of the GQDs-based fluorescence sensing applications concerning food quality analysis has not yet been done. This review article focuses on the recent progress on the synthesis strategies, electronic properties, and fluorescence mechanisms of GQDs. The various GQDs-based fluorescence detection strategies involving Förster resonance energy transfer- or inner filter effect-driven fluorescence turn-on and turn-off response mechanisms toward trace-level detection of toxic metal ions, toxic adulterants, and banned chemical substances in foodstuffs are summarized. The challenges associated with the pretreatment steps of complex food matrices and prospects and challenges associated with the GQDs-based fluorescent probes are discussed. This review could serve as a precedent for further advancement in interdisciplinary research involving the development of versatile GQDs-based fluorescent probes toward food science and technology applications.

Rapid on-site identification of pesticide residues in tea by one-dimensional convolutional neural network coupled with surface-enhanced Raman scattering.

In this study, a novel analytical approach is proposed for the identification of pesticide residues in tea by combining surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) with a deep learning method one-dimensional convolutional neural network (1D CNN). First, a handheld Raman spectrometer was used for rapid on-site collection of SERS spectra. Second, the collected SERS spectra were augmented by a data augmentation strategy. Third, based on the augmented SERS spectra, the 1D CNN models were established on the cloud server, and then the trained 1D CNN models were used for subsequent pesticide residue identification analysis. In addition, to investigate the identification performance of the 1D CNN method, four conventional identification methods, including partial least square-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA), k-nearest neighbour (k-NN), support vector machine (SVM) and random forest (RF), were also developed on the basis of the augmented SERS spectra and applied for pesticide residue identification analysis. The comparative studies show that the 1D CNN method possesses better identification accuracy, stability and sensitivity than the other four conventional identification methods. In conclusion, the proposed novel analytical approach that exploits the advantages of SERS and a deep learning method (1D CNN) is a promising method for rapid on-site identification of pesticide residues in tea.

Noble Metals Based Bimetallic and Trimetallic Nanoparticles: Controlled Synthesis, Antimicrobial and Anticancer Applications.

Noble bimetallic and trimetallic nanoparticles (NBT-NPs) have superior biomedical applications as compared to their monometallic counterparts. The performance of these nanomaterials depends on their composition, shape and size. Hence, the controlled-synthesis of these nanomaterials is a hot area of research. Till date, no review article in the literature accounts regarding the controlled-synthesis and biomedical applications related to morphology, optimum composition, biocompatibility and versatile chemistry of NBT-NPs. Taking this into contemplation, an effort was made to provide a clear insight into the morphology-controlled synthesis and size/shape-dependent anticancer and bactericidal applications of NBT-NPs. Chemical reduction method for the controlled-synthesis of NBT-NPs is reviewed critically. Furthermore, the potential role of various reaction parameters such as time, reducing agents, stabilizing/capping agents, nature/concentration of precursors, temperature and pH in the shape/size-controlled synthesis of these nanomaterials are discussed. In the second part of this article, anticancer and bactericidal applications of the NBT-NPs are reviewed and the influences of optimum composition, size, surface structure, versatile chemistry and synergism are studied. Finally, the current challenges in the controlled-synthesis and biomedical applications of these nanomaterials, and prospects to resolve related issues are discussed. HighlightsChemical reduction method for the synthesis of NBT-NPs is reviewed.The influences of parameters on the control synthesis of NBT-NPs are discussed.Antibacterial and anticancer applications and cytotoxicity of NBT-NPs are reviewed.Possible solutions for the key challenges are discussed.Outlooks about the synthesis and biomedical applications of NBT-NPs are discussed.

Bioinspired morphology-controlled silver nanoparticles for antimicrobial application.

Phytochemicals sources have been extensively used as reducing and capping agents for synthesis of nanoparticles (NPs). However, morphology-controlled synthesis and shape/size dependent applications of these NPs still need to be explored further, and there is a need to develop a way in which particular and optimized phytochemicals result in the desired NPs in lesser time and cost with higher reproducibility rate. The present study is focused on morphology-controlled synthesis and shape/size dependent application of silver NPs based on the fractionated phytochemicals of Elaeagnus umbellata extract (EU). Unlike other approaches, in this study the reaction parameters such as time, temperature, pH, stirring speed and concentration of the precursor solutions were not altered during the optimization process. The fractionated phytochemicals were used separately for the synthesis of AgNPs, and the synthesized NPs were characterized by UV-visible, FT-IR, atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Our findings suggested that the constituents of the extract fractions varied with the selection of the extraction solvent, and the shape/size, bactericidal properties and toxicity of the NPs have a strong correlation with the phytochemicals of the plant extract. The fractionated phytochemicals present in the water fractions (EUW) resulted in monodispersed spherical AgNPs in the size about 40 nm. The NPs have significant stability in physiological conditions (i.e. temperature, pH and salt), have good antibacterial activity, and were found to be non-toxic. Furthermore, AFM and SEM analysis exposed that the NPs killed the bacteria by disturbing the cellular morphology and releasing the cellular matrix. Our results justify the use of different fractions of plant extract to obtain detail implications on shape, size, antibacterial potential and toxicity of AgNPs. This is the first step in a controllable, easy and cheap approach for the synthesis of highly stable, uniform, non-toxic and bactericidal AgNPs using five fractions of EU. The findings suggested that the synthesized NPs, particularly from EUW, could be used in pharmaceutical and homeopathic industry for the development of antibacterial medications.

A system composed of polyethylenimine-capped upconversion nanoparticles, copper(II), hydrogen peroxide and 3,3',5,5'-tetramethylbenzidine for colorimetric and fluorometric determination of glyphosate.

A dual (colorimetric and fluorometric) method is described for sensitive and selective determination of the herbicide glyphosate. It is based on the use of a system composed of polyethylenimine-capped NaGdF4:Yb,Er upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs), copper(II) ions, hydrogen peroxide and 3,3',5,5'-tetramethylbenzidine. The physicochemical and photophysical properties of the polyethylenimine-capped UCNPs were characterized by various spectroscopic and microscopic techniques. The fluorescence of the UCNPs (with main emission peaks at 548 and 660 nm under 980 nm excitation) is reduced in the presence of Cu(II) because of the formation of a blue oxidation product of 3,3',5,5'-tetramethylbenzidine as a result of the peroxidase mimicking activity of Cu(II). In the presence of glyphosate, its strong affinity for Cu(II) leads to the formation of N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine copper(II) complexes. This inhibits the quenching ability and catalysis activity of Cu(II). Hence, fluorescence is increasingly less reduced. Fluorescence at 660 nm increases linearly in the 0.05 to 125 µg·mL-1 glyphosate concentration range and the detection limit is found 9.8 ng·mL-1. The colorimetric assay (performed at 652 nm) has a detection ranges from 5 to 125 µg·mL-1, and the limit of detection is 1 µg·mL-1. Graphical abstractSchematic representation of UCNP-H2O2-TMB-Cu(II) mixed system for optical determinations of glyphosate.