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Plants communicate through volatile organic compounds (VOCs), but real-time monitoring of VOCs for plant intercommunication is not practically possible yet. A nanobionic VOC sensor plant is created to study VOC-mediated plant intercommunication by incorporating surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) nanosensors into a living plant. This sensor allows real-time monitoring of VOC with a sensitivity down to the parts per trillion level. A quantitative VOC diffusion model in plants is proposed to describe this extreme sensitivity. The sensor plant is paired with a customized portable Raman device, demonstrating its ability to detect multiple VOCs on-field. The sensor demonstrated that plants collect VOCs emitted from neighboring plants and hazardous volatile chemicals in the air at a certain distance. As a feasibility study, this nanobionic VOC sensor plant successfully monitored the early stages of fungal infection in strawberry fruits. This result suggests that interfacing nanosensors with plants offers an innovative approach to studying interplant communication and can be used as a compelling tool for monitoring VOC occurrence., (© 2024 The Author(s). Advanced Science published by Wiley‐VCH GmbH.)

Conjugation of an oligopeptide or an amino acid to bioactive compounds is one of the simplest chemical modifications to modulate the biological functions of the compounds. Recently, numerous methods have been proposed for the modification of their properties, including the alteration of their chemical and physical properties, and of their original bioactivities. We review the current knowledge of the adaptability of oligopeptide or amino acid conjugation for modulating the biological activities of biomolecules., (Copyright © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

Twenty two kojic acid-tripeptide amides were prepared using a solid-phase Fmoc/tBu strategy with Rink Amide SURE(R) resin. To effectively obtain kojic acid-tripeptide amide conjugates, the coupling conditions of kojic acid to the tripeptide on the resin were optimized. The tyrosinase inhibitory activity of kojic acid-tripeptide amides and the effect of the amino acid sequence on the activity were compared with those of kojic acid-tripeptide acids. The stability of kojic acid-tripeptide amides were then compared with those of kojic acid and kojic acid-tripeptides acids. As a consequence, kojic acid-FWY-NH(2) proved to be the best compound, with the highest inhibitory activity, which was maintained over different storage times under various temperatures and pHs.