Mercury-mediated toxicity remains one of the greatest barriers against microbial survival, even though bacterial resistance to mercury compounds can occur. However, the genetic and physiological adaptations of bacteria to mercury stress still remains unclear. Here, we show that the marine bacterium Pseudomonas stutzeri 273 is resistant to 50 μM Hg2+ and removes up to 94% Hg2+ from culture. Usin...

A thiol-functionalized magnetite/graphene oxide (MGO) hybrid as an adsorbent of Hg2+ was successfully synthesized by a two-step reaction. It exhibited a higher adsorption capacity compared to the bare graphene oxide and MGO due to the combined adsorption of thiol groups and magnetite nanocrystals. Its capacity reached 289.9 mg g-1 in a solution with an initial Hg2+ concentration of 100 mg l-1. ...

Because of the increasing threat of mercury exposure in the environment from global mercury emissions as well as various forms of contamination,1 there has been a growing interest in the development of highly sensitive and selective systems for mercuric ions (Hg2+) over the past few years. Various sensor systems for detection of Hg2+, based upon organic chromophores or fluorophores,2 conjugated...

Rhodamine-based fluorescent chemosensors 1 and 2 exhibit selective fluorescence enhancement to Fe3+ and Hg2+ over other metal ions at 580 nm in CH(3)CN/H(2)O (3/1, v/v) solution. Bis(rhodamine) chemosensor 1, under optimized conditions (CH(3)CN/HEPES buffer (0.02 M, pH = 7.0) (95/5, v/v)), shows a high selectivity and sensitivity to Hg2+, with a linear working range of 0-50 μM, a wide pH span o...

We report herein the use of an exonuclease III and G-quadruplex probe to construct a G-quadruplex-based luminescence detection platform for Hg2+. Unlike common DNA-based Hg2+ detection methods, when using the dsDNA probe to monitor the hairpin formation, the intercalation of the dsDNA probe may be influenced by the distortion of dsDNA. This 'mix-and-detect' methodology utilized the G-quadruplex...

I describe the mechanism whereby ascorbic acid can hamper test systems involving a peroxide-generating system, peroxidase, and a benzidine-type indicator. In test media such as urines, abnormally high concentrations of ascorbic acid may give rise to false negatives in the determination of analytes such as glucose. Absorbance measurements in solution or reflectance measurements on commercially a...

Three novel bis-dansyl derivatives bearing a sulfur bridge have been synthesized, fully characterized, and their photophysical characterization studied in solution, as well as, the solid state. All compounds exhibit fluorescence emission with quantum yields up to 60%, which vary significantly depending on solvent used, inherent molecular structure. Moreover, these demonstrate positive solvatofl...

Two sensors, 1 with a spirolactone group and 2 with a spirolactam group containing a phenyl isothiocyanate moiety, based on rhodol, were designed and synthesized in order to obtain materials with excellent optical properties for the detection of environmentally and biologically important Hg2+ and hypochlorous acid (HClO) ions. The crystal structure of 1 revealed two moieties, a rhodamine-like p...

The detection of environmental mercury (Hg) contamination requires complex and expensive instruments and professional technicians. We present a simple, sensitive, and portable Hg2+ detection system based on a smartphone and colorimetric aptamer nanosensor. A smartphone equipped with a light meter app was used to detect, record, and process signals from a smartphone-based microwell reader (MR S-...