A new biosensor method was developed to determine residual carbofuran in tomatoes in a rapid and convenient fashion based on immobilizing acetylcholinesterase (AChE) on an electrode modified by concanavalin A (Con A)/polydopamine (PDA)-reduced graphene oxide (RGO)-gold nanoparticle (GNP) nanocomposites. The specific binding between Con A and AChE was investigated by the Ellman method and cyclic voltammetry (CV). The synthesis of nanocomposites was monitored by ultraviolet-visible absorption spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The results showed that, due to the specific binding and good electrical conductivity, the biosensor had 2.2 times higher bioactivity, leading to high sensitivity with a low Michaelis constant of 0.10 mM. Parameters that affect the response of the biosensor, such as the pH, enzyme loading, ionic concentration, and inhibition time, were optimized. When used for the detection of carbofuran, this biosensor showed a wide range of applicability from 5 µg/kg to 40 µg/kg with a detection limit of 0.012 µg/kg. In addition, the biosensor demonstrated good recovery values of 101% and 90% for 10 µg/kg and 100 µg/kg of the analyte, good stability, high repeatability, and a rapid detection time of 20 min for carbofuran in tomatoes, which provides significant advantages for future analysis.

Glucosinolates (GSLs) are important precursor compounds with anticancer activities in Brassicaceae vegetables and are readily hydrolyzed by myrosinase. Given the diversity of these species, establishing an accurate and universal method to quantify intact GSLs in different plant tissues is necessary. Here, we compared and optimized three tissue disruption methods for sample preparation. After microwave treatment for 90 s, 13 GSLs in homogenized Chinese cabbage samples were recovered at 73–124%. However, a limitation of this method was that different tissues could not be processed under the same microwave conditions. Regarding universality, GSLs in Brassicaceae vegetables could be extracted from freeze-dried sample powder with 70% methanol (v/v) or frozen-fresh sample powder with 80% methanol (v/v). Moreover, heating extraction is necessary for GSLs extracted from frozen-fresh sample powder. Average recoveries of the two optimized methods were 74–119% with relative standard deviations ≤ 15%, with the limits of quantification 5.72–17.40 nmol/g dry weight and 0.80–1.43 nmol/g fresh weight, respectively. Notably, the method for analyzing intact GSLs was more efficient than that for desulfo-GSLs regarding operational complexity, detection speed and quantification accuracy. The developed method was applied to identify the characteristic GSLs in 15 Brassicaceae vegetables, providing a foundation for further research on GSLs.