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We identified the rice floral organ development mutant, termed as open hull and male sterile 1 ( ohms1 ), from the progeny of the indica restorer line Zhonghui 8015 treated with 60Co γ-ray irradiation. The ohms1 mutant exhibited an open hull and lemma- and palea-like structure conversion between the anthers and stigma, which resulted in the ohms1 mutant spikelet showing ‘tridentate lemma’. The ohms1 mutant was entirely sterile but had 60%–70% fertile pollen. Genetic analysis and gene mapping showed that ohms1 was controlled by a single recessive gene, and the mutant gene was fine-mapped to a 42-kb interval on the short arm of chromosome 3 between markers KY2 and KY29. Sequence analysis of the four open reading frames in this region revealed that the mutant carried a single nucleotide transformation (A to G) at the last base of the fifth intron, which was likely corresponded to ohms1 phynotype, in an MIKC type MADS-box gene OsMADS1 (LOC_Os03g11614). Enzyme digestion and cDNA sequencing further indicated that the variable splicing was responsible for the deletion of the sixth exon in ohms1 , but no structural changes in the MADS domain or amino acid frame shifts appeared. Additionally, real-time fluorescent quantitative PCR analysis showed that the OsMADS1 expression level decreased significantly in the ohms1 mutant. The expression levels of rice flowering factors and floral glume development-related genes also changed significantly. These results demonstrate that OsMADS1 may play an important role in rice floral organ development, particularly in floral glume development and floret primordium differentiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The lipase-catalyzed transesterification of ethyl ferulate with triolein in a solvent-free medium was investigated. Transesterification was catalyzed by immobilized lipase from Candida antarctica (Novozym 435), to form ferulyl oleins, a mixture of ferulyl diolein and ferulyl monoolein. These ferulated esters can be widely used as natural antioxidant in both lipid containing food and cosmetic applications. External mass transfer limitations were lowest, when the agitation speed was higher than 180 rpm. A linear relationship between the initial reaction rate and enzyme load up to 10% demonstrated that the internal diffusion limitations could be minimized. The effects of various parameters on yields and rates of reaction were studied in the absence of mass transfer limitations. The initial reaction rate increased when the reaction temperature was raised in the range of 45-65 °C, further increase to 70°C decreased the final yield to 48.9%. The value of activation energy was calculated as 65.04 kJ/mol based on the Arrhenius law. Under the most favorable conditions, a kinetic model based on the ping-pong bi-bi mechanism with triolein inhibition was found to fit the initial reaction rate data very well and the kinetic parameters were evaluated by non-linear regression analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Currently, cytokine-induced killer cells (CIK)/dendritic cell (DC)-CIK-mediated immunotherapy is widely used to treat gastric cancer. However, limited information regarding clinical trials on CIK/DC-CIK therapy is available. Therefore, systemic evaluation of the efficacy and safety of the combination therapy is necessary. Methods. A meta-analysis involving 1735 patients with gastric cancer was conducted. Before analysis, the study quality and heterogeneity were evaluated. The effects of chemotherapy combined with CIK/DC-CIK on gastric cancer were compared with the effects observed when chemotherapy alone was used. Pooled analysis was performed using RevMan version 5.2 from random or fixed-effect models. Results. Seventeen trials were included. First, the analysis showed that the combination therapy significantly increased the overall survival rate and disease-free survival rate compared with those in patients treated using chemotherapy alone. The overall response rate (P= 0.002), disease control rate (P= 0.0007), and quality of life improved rate (P= 0.0008) were significantly improved in patients who received combined treatment than in patients who received chemotherapy alone. Second, the percentage of lymphocyte subsets (CD3+, CD4+ and CD3-CD56+, CD3+CD56+; P < 0.01) and the levels of interleukin- 12 and interferon-γ, which reflect immune function, were significantly increased (P< 0.05) after the CIK/DC-CIK therapy. Further, carbohydrate antigen tumor markers were significantly reduced compared with the pre-therapy levels. Immunotherapy with CIK/DC-CIK obviously alleviated the adverse events caused by chemotherapy. Conclusion. The combination of CIK/DC-CIK therapy and chemotherapy was superior in prolonging the survival time, enhancing immune function and alleviating the adverse events caused by chemotherapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]