Evaluation of Agronomic Traits in Chromosome Segment Substitution Lines of KDML105 Containing Drought Tolerance QTL under Drought Stress

Drought is a major abiotic constraint to rice production in rainfed lowland and insufficiently irrigated areas. The improvement of drought tolerant varieties is one of the strategies to reduce the negative effects of drought. Quantitative trait loci （QTLs） for primary and secondary traits related to drought tolerance （DT） on chromosomes 1, 3, 4, 8 and 9 that determined from double haploid lines derived from a cross between CT9993 and IR62266 were introgressed and dissected into small pieces in the genetic background of Khao Dawk Mall 105 （KDML105） to develop chromosome segment substitution line （CSSL） population. The CSSLs were evaluated at the reproductive stage for their agronomic performance and yield components under drought stress, and results were compared with irrigated condition. The flowering of CSSL lines was 6 to 7 d earlier than KDML105. The mean values of grain yields in the CSSLs were higher than KDML105 under drought and irrigated conditions. At irrigated condition, the grain yields of introgression lines carrying DT-QTLs from chromosomes 4 and 8 were higher than that of KDML105, whereas other traits showed little difference with KDML105. Analysis indicated that grain yield has positive correlation with plant height, tiller and panicle number per plant, and total grain weight per plant under drought stress while negatively correlated with days to flowering. As mentioned above, CSSLs showing good adaptation under drought stress can be used as genetic materials to improve drought tolerance in Thai rainfed lowland rice breeding program, and as materials to dissect genes underlying drought tolerance.

Comparability Assessments of Process Changes Made during Development of Anti-Idiotype Vaccine

Racotumomab monoclonal antibody is a murine anti-idiotypic antibody. This monoclonal antibody mimics N-glycolyl-GM3 gangliosides has been tested in several clinical trials Phase I/II for breast, melanoma and non-small cell lung cancer patients as an anti-idiotypic cancer vaccine. The early production process was performed in vivo from mice ascites fluid. This process was transferred to bioreactor-based method at pilot scale followed to the scale-up of the fermentation. In this work we present a comprehensive molecular characterization of racotumomab MAb produced by the two different production scales in order to determine the impact of the manufacturing process in vaccine performance. We observed differences in glycosylation pattern and charge heterogeneity between racotumomab produced in both scales. Interestingly, these modifications had no significant impact on biological activity elicited in chickens. So, changes in primary structure like glycosylation, charge heterogeneity and oxidation did not affect biological activity of the vaccine.