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Vegetative desiccation tolerance has evolved within the genera Craterostigma and Lindernia. A centre of endemism and diversification for these plants appears to occur in ancient tropical montane rainforests of east Africa in Kenya and Tanzania. Lindernia subracemosa, a desiccation-sensitive relative of Craterostigma plantagineum, occurs in these rainforests and experiences adequate rainfall and thus does not require desiccation tolerance. However, sharing this inselberg habitat, another species, Lindernia brevidens, does retain vegetative desiccation tolerance and is also related to the resurrection plant C. plantagineum found in South Africa. Leaf material was collected from all three species at different stages of hydration: fully hydrated (ca. 90% relative water content), half-dry (ca. 45% relative water content) and fully desiccated (ca. 5% relative water content). Cell wall monosaccharide datasets were collected from all three species. Comprehensive microarray polymer profiling (CoMPP) was performed using ca. 27 plant cell-wall-specific antibodies and carbohydrate-binding module probes. Some differences in pectin, xyloglucan and extension epitopes were observed between the selected species. Overall, cell wall compositions were similar, suggesting that wall modifications in response to vegetative desiccation involve subtle cell wall remodelling that is not reflected by the compositional analysis and that the plants and their walls are constitutively protected against desiccation.

This focused chapter serves as a short survey of glycan microarrays that are available with sialylated glycans, including both defined and shotgun arrays, their generation, and their utility in studying differential binding interactions to sialylated compounds, highlighting N-glycolyl (Gc) modified sialylated compounds. A brief discussion of binding interactions by lectins, antibodies, and viruses, and their relevance that have been observed with sialylated glycan microarrays is presented, as well as a discussion of cross-comparisons of array platforms and efforts to centralize and standardize the glycan microarray data.

The current COVID-19 pandemic is caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). A better understanding of its immunogenicity can be important for the development of improved diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines. Here, we report the longitudinal analysis of three COVID-19 patients with moderate (#1) and mild disease (#2 and #3). Antibody serum responses were analyzed using spike glycoprotein enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), full-proteome peptide, and glycan microarrays. ELISA immunoglobulin A, G, and M (IgA, IgG, and IgM) signals increased over time for individuals #1 and #2, whereas #3 only showed no clear positive IgG and IgM result. In contrast, peptide microarrays showed increasing IgA/G signal intensity and epitope spread only in the moderate patient #1 over time, whereas early but transient IgA and stable IgG responses were observed in the two mild cases #2 and #3. Glycan arrays showed an interaction of antibodies to fragments of high-mannose and core N-glycans, present on the viral shield. In contrast to protein ELISA, microarrays allow for a deeper understanding of IgA, IgG, and IgM antibody responses to specific epitopes of the whole proteome and glycans of SARS-CoV-2 in parallel. In the future, this may help to better understand and to monitor vaccination programs and monoclonal antibodies as therapeutics.