There is an urgent need to elucidate the epidemiology of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2) and characterize its potential impact. Investing in characterising the SARS-CoV2 will help plan and improve the response to the pandemic. Furthermore, it will help identify the most efficient ways of managing the pandemic, avoiding public health policies and interventions that may be unduly restrictive of normal activity or unnecessarily costly. This paper describes the design and reports findings of a population based epidemiological study undertaken to characterise SARS-CoV2 in Qatar using limited resources in a timely manner. Asymptomatic individuals ≥10 years registered with Qatar's publicly funded primary health provider were eligible. A stratified random sampling technique was utilized to identify the study sample. Participants were invited to an appointment where they completed a questionnaire and provided samples for polymerase chain reaction and Immunoglobulin M and G immunoassnumber of asymptomatic cases observed. Robust contact tracing and social distancing measures are key to prevent future outbreaks. The study provides an example of a methodologically robust approach that can be undertaken in a timely manner with limited resources. It reports much-needed epidemiological data about the spread of SARS-CoV2. Given the low prevalence rates, majority of the population in Qatar remains susceptible. Enhanced surveillance must continue to be in place, particularly due to the large number of asymptomatic cases observed. https://www.selleckchem.com/products/vo-ohpic.html Robust contact tracing and social distancing measures are key to prevent future outbreaks. A considerable amount of evidence demonstrates the potential of saliva in the diagnosis of COVID-19. Our aim was to determine the sensitivity of saliva versus swabs collected by healthcare workers (HCWs) and patients themselves to assess whether saliva detection can be offered as a cost-effective, risk-free method of SARS-CoV-2 detection. This study was conducted in a hospital involving outpatients and hospitalized patients. A total of 3018 outpatients were tested. Of these, 200 qRT-PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2-positive patients were recruited for further study. In addition, 101 SARS-CoV-2-positive hospitalized patients with symptoms were also enrolled in the study. From outpatients, HCWs collected nasopharyngeal swabs (NPS), saliva were obtained. From inpatients, HCWs collected swabs, patient-collected swabs, and saliva were obtained. qRT-PCR was performed to detect SARS-CoV-2 by TAQPATH assay to determine the sensitivity of saliva detection. Sensitivity, specificity and positive/negative predictive values (tients. Saliva which is easier to collect than nasopharyngeal swab is a viable alternate to detect SARS-COV-2 in symptomatic patients in the early stage of onset of symptoms. Although saliva is currently not recommended for screening asymptomatic patients, optimization of collection and uniform timing of sampling might improve the sensitivity enabling its use as a screening tool at community level. Saliva which is easier to collect than nasopharyngeal swab is a viable alternate to detect SARS-COV-2 in symptomatic patients in the early stage of onset of symptoms. Although saliva is currently not recommended for screening asymptomatic patients, optimization of collection and uniform timing of sampling might improve the sensitivity enabling its use as a screening tool at community level. Growing large crop monocultures and heavily using pesticides enhances the evolution of pesticide-insensitive pests and pathogens. To reduce pesticide use in crop cultivation, the application of priming-active compounds (PrimACs) is a welcome alternative. PrimACs strengthen the plant immune system and could thus help to protect plants with lower amounts of pesticides. PrimACs can be identified, for example, by their capacity to enhance the respiratory activity of parsley cells in culture as determined by the oxygen transfer rate (OTR) using the respiration activity monitoring system (RAMOS) or its miniaturized version, µRAMOS. The latter was designed for with suspensions of bacteria and yeast cells in microtiter plates (MTPs). So far, RAMOS or µRAMOS have not been applied to adult plants or seedlings, which would overcome the limitation of (µ)RAMOS to plant suspension cell cultures. In this work, we introduce a modified µRAMOS for analysis of plant seedlings. The novel device allows illuminating the seedliable screening for PrimACs in plant seedlings. We disclose the suitability of µRAMOS for identifying PrimACs in plant seedlings. The difference in OTR during a night period between primed and unprimed plants was distinguishable after elicitation with flg22. Thus, it has been shown that the µRAMOS device can be used for a reliable screening for PrimACs in plant seedlings. Flexibility of plant metabolism is supported by redox regulation of enzymes via posttranslational modification of cysteine residues, especially in plastids. Here, the redox states of cysteine residues are partly coupled to the thioredoxin system and partly to the glutathione pool for reduction. Moreover, several plastid enzymes involved in reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavenging and damage repair draw electrons from glutathione. In addition, cysteine residues can be post-translationally modified by forming a mixed disulfide with glutathione (S-glutathionylation), which protects thiol groups from further oxidation and can influence protein activity. However, the evolution of the plastid glutathione-dependent redox network in land plants and the conservation of cysteine residues undergoing S-glutathionylation is largely unclear. We analysed the genomes of nine representative model species from streptophyte algae to angiosperms and found that the antioxidant enzymes and redox proteins belonging to the plastconservation suggests that S-glutathionylation in plastids plays an important and yet under-investigated role in redox regulation and stress response. We conclude that the glutathione-dependent redox network in plastids is highly conserved in streptophytes with some variability in scavenging and damage repair enzymes. Our analysis of cysteine conservation suggests that S-glutathionylation in plastids plays an important and yet under-investigated role in redox regulation and stress response.