Zika virus (ZIKV) is an emerging mosquito-transmitted flavivirus that can cause severe disease, including congenital birth defect and Guillain−Barré syndrome during pregnancy. Although, several molecular diagnostic methods have been developed to detect the ZIKV, these methods pose challenges as they cannot detect early viral infection. Furthermore, these methods require the extraction of RNA, which is easy to contaminate. Nonstructural protein 1 (NS1) is an important biomarker for early diagnosis of the virus, and the detection methods associated with the NS1 protein have recently been reported. The aim of this study was to develop a rapid and sensitive detection method for the detection of the ZIKV based on the NS1 protein. The sensitivity of this method is 120 ng mL⁻¹ and it detected the ZIKV in the supernatant and lysates of Vero and BHK cells, as well as the sera of tree shrews infected with the ZIKV. Without the isolation of the virus and the extraction of the RNA, our method can be used as a primary screening test as opposed to other diagnosis methods that detect the ZIKV.

A sandwich lateral flow strip assay (LFSA) using a couple of aptamers functionalized with gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) was designed to assess the presence of rongalite in agrifood products. More specifically, a biotin-labeled primary A09 aptamer immobilized on a streptavidin-coated membrane and a secondary B09 aptamer conjugated with AuNPs were developed as capturing and signaling probes, respectively. This system allows the successful and direct detection of rongalite in food samples with concentrations as low as 1 μg/mL, simply by observing the color change of LFSA control and test line.

NAC (for N AM , A TAF1-2 , and C UC2 ) proteins are one of the largest transcription factor families in plants. They have various functions and are closely related to developmental processes of fruits. Tomato ( Solanum lycopersicum ) is a model plant for studies of fruit growth patterns. In this study, the functional characteristics and action mechanisms of a new NAC-type transcription factor, SlNAC3 (SGN-U568609), were examined to determine its role in tomato development and ripening. The SlNAC3 protein was produced by prokaryotic expression and used to immunize New Zealand white rabbits to obtain a specific polyclonal antibody against SlNAC3. By co-immunoprecipitation and MALDI-TOF-MS assays, we showed that there was an interaction between the SlNAC3 protein and Polygalacturonase-2 (PG-2), which is related to the ripening and softening of fruit. Chromatin immunoprecipitation assays revealed the genome of the highly stress-tolerant Solanum pennellii chromosome 10 (sequence ID, HG975449.1), further demonstrating that SlNAC3 is a negative regulator of drought and salinity stress resistance in tomato, consistent with previous reports. These results indicate that SlNAC3 is not only involved in abiotic stress, but also plays a necessary role in mediating tomato ripening.

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