In this Chinese population, CU usually affected youth, and CSU was the most common subtype. Autoreactivity and alcohol consumption were the top two triggers for CU, whereas latent infectious and chronic inflammatory diseases were not as common as in previous reports.

The iron-catalyzed highly Markovnikov-type selective and enantioselective hydrosilylation of terminal aliphatic alkenes with good functional group tolerance is developed. This operationally simple protocol uses earth-abundant transition metal catalyst, readily available aliphatic alkenes and hydrosilanes to construct valuable chiral organosilanes with better than 99% ee in most cases. The chiral aliphatic alkan-2-ol and chiral dihydroxysilane as an analogue of ketone could be efficiently synthesized via further derivatization of chiral organosilanes without any racemization.

A cobalt-catalyzed highly Markovnikov-type and enantioselective hydrosilylation of alkenes is developed for the efficient synthesis of valuable chiral dihydrosilanes. This protocol is operationally simple and atom-economy, and using relatively simple and readily available starting materials. The reaction is suitable for both aryl and aliphatic alkenes with excellent functional group tolerability. The reaction could be easily carried out in a gram-scale. The TOF and TON is up to 1800 and 860, respectively.

A highly regio- and enantioselective cobalt-catalyzed hydroboration/hydrogenation of internal alkynes with HBpin and a hydrogen balloon in one pot was developed. A new type of chiral imidazoline iminopyridine (IIP) ligand was introduced for the first time in this novel and efficient strategy. This protocol used relatively simple and available starting materials with good functional group tolerance to construct more valuable chiral secondary organoboronates. The primary mechanistic studies illustrated that the cobalt-catalyzed regioselective hydroboration of alkynes did initially occur followed by HBpin-promoted and cobalt-catalyzed enantioselective hydrogenation of alkenylboronates.

The chiral iminopyridine oxazoline (IPO) ligands were designed, synthesized and utilized for the first cobalt-catalyzed highly regio-and enantioselective anti-Markovnikov hydroboration of 1,1-disubstituted aryl alkenes. This novel IPO ligands will likely be of high value for asymmetric transformations with first-row transition metals.

The highly regio- and enantioselective iron-catalyzed anti-Markovnikov hydrosilylation of 1,1-disubstituted aryl alkenes was developed using iminopyridine oxazoline ligands to afford chiral organosilanes. Additional derivatization of these products lead to chiral organosilanols, cyclic silanes, phenol derivatives, and 3-substituted 2,3-dihydrobenzofurans.

ABSTRACT. The ethylene response factor (ERF) family are members of the APETALA2 (AP2)/ERF transcription factor superfamily; they are known to play an important role in plant adaptation to biotic and abiotic stress. ERF genes have been studied in Arabidopsis, rice, grape, and maize; however, there are few reports of ERF genes in sorghum. We identified 105 sorghum ERF (SbERF) genes, which were categorized into 12 groups (A-1 to A-6 and B-1 to B-6) based on their sequence similarity, and this new method of classification for ERF genes was then further characterized. A comprehensive bioinformatic analysis of SbERF genes was performed using a sorghum genomic database, to analyze the phylogeny of SbERF genes, identify other conserved motifs apart from the AP2/ERF domain, map SbERF genes to the 10 sorghum chromosomes, and determine the tissue-specific expression patterns of SbERF genes. Gene clustering indicates that SbERF genes were generated by tandem duplications. Comparison of SbERF genes with maize ERF homologs suggests lateral gene transfer between monocot species. These results can contribute to our understanting of ©FUNPEC-RP www.funpecrp.com.br Genetics and Molecular Research 12 (2): 2038-2055 (2013 Analysis of the ERF gene family in sorghum 2039 the evolution of the ERF gene family.

Cancer Targeting Gene-Viro-Therapy (CTGVT) is a promising cancer therapeutical strategy that strengthens the anti-tumour effect of oncolytic virus by expressing inserted foreign anti-tumour genes. In this work, we constructed a novel adenoviral vector controlled by the tumour-specific survivin promoter on the basis of the ZD55 vector, which is an E1B55KD gene deleted vector we previously constructed. Compared with the original ZD55 vector, this new adenoviral vector (ZD55SP/E1A) showed much better ability of replication and reporter gene expression. We then combined anti-tumour gene interleukine-24 (IL-24) with an RNA polymerase III-dependent U6 promoter driving short hairpin RNA (shRNA) that targets M-phase phosphoprotein 1 (MPHOSPH1, a newly identified oncogene) by inserting the IL-24 and the shRNA of MPHOSPH1 (shMPP1) expression cassettes into the new ZD55SP/E1A vector. Our results demonstrated excellent anti-tumour effect of ZD55SP/E1A-IL-24-shMPP1 in vitro on multiple cancer cell lines such as lung cancer, liver cancer and ovarian caner. At high multiplicity-of-infection (MOI), ZD55SP/E1A-IL-24-shMPP1 triggered post-mitotic apoptosis in cancer cells by inducing prolonged mitotic arrest; while at low MOI, senescence was induced. More importantly, ZD55SP/E1A-IL-24-shMPP1 also showed excellent anti-tumour effects in vivo on SW620 xenograft nude mice. In conclusion, our strategy of constructing an IL-24 and shMPP1 dual gene expressing oncolytic adenoviral vector, which is regulated by the survivin promoter and E1B55KD deletion, could be a promising method of cancer gene therapy.