Photosynthetic performance of glumes of oat spikelets is more stable for grain-filling stage under drought stress.

Drought stress affects plant photosynthesis, leading to a reduction in the quality and yield of crop production. Non-foliar organs play a complementary role in photosynthesis during plant growth and development and are important sources of energy. However, there are limited studies on the performance of non-foliar organs under drought stress. The photosynthetic-responsive differences of oat spikelet organs (glumes, lemmas and paleas) and flag leaves to drought stress during the grain-filling stage were examined. Under drought stress, photosynthetic performance of glume is more stable. Intercellular CO2 concentration (Ci), chlorophyll b, maximum photochemical efficiency of photosystem II. (Fv/Fm), and electron transport rate (ETR) were significantly higher in the glume compared to the flag leaf. The transcriptome data revealed that stable expression of the RCCR gene under drought stress was the main reason for maintaining higher chlorophyll content in the glume. Additionally, no differential expression genes (DEGs) related to Photosystem Ⅰ (PSI) reaction centers were found, and drought stress primarily affects the Photosystem II (PSII) reaction center. In spikelets, the CP43 and CP47 subunits of PSII and the AtpB subunit of ATP synthase were increased on the thylakoid membrane, contributing to photosynthetic stabilisation of spikelets as a means of supplementing the limited photosynthesis of the leaves under drought stress. The results enhanced understanding of the photosynthetic performance of oat spikelet during the grain-filling stage, and also provided an important basis on improving the photosynthetic capacity of non-foliar organs for the selection and breeding new oat varieties with high yield and better drought resistance.

Erratum: [Corrigendum] Chloroquine potentiates the anticancer effect of sunitinib on renal cell carcinoma by inhibiting autophagy and inducing apoptosis.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3892/ol.2017.7635.].

Characterization of SARS-CoV-2-specific humoral immunity and associated factors in the healthy population post-vaccination.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate factors that may influence humoral immunity post-vaccination with a COVID-19-inactivated vaccine (SC2IV). METHODS: A total of 1596 healthy individuals from the Seventh Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University (1217) and Shenzhen Baotian Hospital (379) were enrolled in this study among which 694 and 218 participants were vaccinated with two-dose SC2IV, respectively. Physical examination indices were recorded. The levels of neutralizing antibody (NA), Spike IgG, receptor-binding domain (RBD) IgG, RBD IgG + IgM + IgA, and nucleocapsid IgG of SARS-CoV-2 were measured by a non-virus ELISA kit. Multiple statistical analyses were carried out to identify factors that influence humoral immunity post-vaccination. RESULTS: The two-dosage vaccination could induce NA in more than 90 % of recipients. The NA has the strongest correlation with anti-RBD IgG. Age is the most important independent index that affects the NA level, while basophil count, creatine kinase-MB, mean corpuscular hemoglobin, the ratio of albumin to urine creatinine, and thyroglobulin antibody have relatively minor contributions. Indices that affect the NA level were different between males and females. Antibodies targeting other epitopes of SARS-CoV-2 were detected in recipients without anti-RBD. CONCLUSIONS: The factors identified in association with the NA level post-vaccination may help to evaluate the protective effect, risk of re-infection, the severity of symptoms, and prognosis for vaccine recipients in clinical.