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Simple physico-chemical techniques can be used to evaluate the composition, structure, and characteristics of plant seeds to determine their viability, quality, and possible uses in agriculture. Advanced analytical techniques, including thermo gravimetric analysis (TGA), electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR), and high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC), provide completely new insights and more precise information. They can be integrated to build up seed quality profiles, with great advantage to assess water content, organic compounds, and inorganic metals without the need to carry out many extraction procedures, as requested by more conventional methods. In this study, seed lots from three different plant species such as Triticum turgidum L. subsp. durum (wheat), Trigonella foenum graecum L. (trigonella or fenugreek), and Atriplex halimus L. (saltbush or sea orach) have been used to test the potential of TGA, EPR, and HPLC to discriminate between seed-specific features. A key finding of this study is that HPLC is essential in Principal Component Analysis (PCA) because various seeds (from the same species or other species) may contain compounds with varying polarity groups. The reported data confirm the efficacy of this approach. These data, fully available for other users, are coherently constructed and provide a proof of concept for future seed quality control studies., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Reliable serological assays are needed to understand the real impact of COVID-19. In order to compare the efficiency of different COVID-19 vaccines used in the National Vaccination Program in Tunisia, we have developed a quantitative in-house ELISA. The ELISA is based on the ectodomain of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike Baculovirus recombinant protein. We used a panel of 145 COVID-19 RT-PCR positive serum samples and 116 pre-pandemic serum samples as a negative panel. The validation was carried out by comparison to four commercial techniques (Vidas SARS-CoV-2 IgG anti-RBD Biomérieux, Elecsys Anti-Nucleocapsid of SARS-CoV-2 Roche, cPass GenScript and the quantitative Elecsys Anti-RBD of SARS-CoV-2, Roche). For the evaluation of the National Vaccination campaign, we have included 115 recipients who received one of the approved vaccines. The qualitative performances of the developed ELISA gave 96% sensitivity, 97.5% specificity and 0.968 accuracy. For the evaluation of the different brand of vaccines in recipients not previously infected with SARS-CoV-2, it seems that mRNA vaccine of Pfizer/BioNTech has shown a higher efficacy compared to inactivated virus vaccines. COVID-19 convalescent individuals have generated poor antibody responses. Nevertheless, when they are vaccinated with any brand of the COVID-19 vaccines, many of them mounted an exponential increase of the induced immune responses, qualified as a "hybrid vigor immunity". Our developed in-house ELISA seems to be very efficient in evaluating the effectiveness of anti-COVID-19 vaccination. Platforms based on mRNA vaccine are better performing than those based on inactivated virus., (© 2022. The Author(s).)