The application of pesticides is critical during the growth of high-quality grape for wine making. However, pesticide residues have significant influence on the wine flavor. In this study, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was performed and the obtained datasets were analyzed with multivariate statistical methods to investigate changes in flavor substances in wine during fermentation. The principal component analysis (PCA) score plot showed significant differences in the metabolites of wine treated with various pesticides. In trials using five pesticides (hexaconazole, difenoconazole, flutriafol, tebuconazole, and propiconazole), more than 86 metabolites were changed. Most of these metabolites were natural flavor compounds, like carbohydrates, amino acids, and short-chain fatty acids and their derivatives, which essentially define the appearance, aroma, flavor, and taste of the wine. Moreover, the five pesticides added to grape pulp exhibited different effects on the metabolic pathways, involving mainly alanine, aspartate and glutamate metabolism, butanoate metabolism, arginine, and proline metabolism. The results of this study will provide new insight into the potential impact of pesticide residues on the metabolites and sensory profile of wine during fermentation.

Size/polarity guided triple-code strategy, a novel semirational mutagenesis strategy, was developed in this study and employed to engineer the aglycon attacking site of CGTase. Screening pressure was set as improved hesperidin glucoside synthesis ability, and eight positive mutants were obtained by screening only 32 mutants.

Chitin is an important part of the fungal cell wall, but is not found in plants and mammals, so chitin synthase (CHS) can be a green fungicide target. In this paper, 35 maleimide compounds were designed and synthesized as CHS inhibitors. All the screened compounds showed different degrees of CHS inhibitory activity and antifungal activity in vitro. In particular, the half–inhibitory concentration (IC₅₀) value of compound 20 on CHS was 0.12 mM, and the inhibitory effect was better than that of the control polyoxin B (IC₅₀ = 0.19 mM). At the same time, this compound also showed good antifungal activity and has further development value.

Cyclodextrin glycosyltransferase (CGTase) can catalyze the glycosylation of hesperidin, resulting in α-glycosyl hesperidin with significantly improved water solubility. In this study, a rational design of CGTase to improve its hesperidin glycosylation activity was investigated. The strategy we employed involved docking hesperidin in its near-attack conformation and virtually mutating the surrounding residues, followed by calculating the changes in binding energy using Rosetta flex-ddG. The mutations with a stabilization effect were then subjected to an activity assay. Starting from CGTase-Y217F, we obtained three double-point mutants, Y217F/M351F, Y217F/M351L, and Y217F/D393H, with improved hesperidin glycosylation activities after screening twenty variants. The best variant, Y217F/D393H, exhibited a catalytic activity of 1305 U/g, and its kcat/KmA is 2.36 times higher compared to CGTase-Y217F and 15.14 times higher compared to the wild-type CGTase. Molecular dynamic simulations indicated that hesperidin was repulsed by CGTase-Y217F when bound in a near-attack conformation. However, by introducing a second-point mutation with a stabilization effect, the repulsion effect is weakened, resulting in a reduction in the distances between the bond-forming atoms and, thus, favoring the reaction.