A facile and mild synthesis of trisubstituted allylic sulfones from Morita-Baylis-Hillman carbonates.

An efficient and catalyst-free synthesis of trisubstituted allylic sulfones through an allylic sulfonylation reaction of Morita-Baylis-Hillman (MBH) carbonates with sodium sulfinates has been developed. Under the optimized reaction conditions, a series of trisubstituted allylic sulfones were rapidly prepared in good to excellent yields (71%-99%) with good to high selectivity (Z/E from 79:21 to >99:1). Compared with known synthetic methods, the current protocol features mild reaction temperature, high efficiency and easily available reagents.

Goat uromodulin promoter directs kidney-specific expression of GFP gene in transgenic mice.

Background: Uromodulin is the most abundant protein found in the urine of mammals. In an effort to utilize the uromodulin promoter in order to target recombinant proteins in the urine of transgenic animals we have cloned a goat uromodulin gene promoter fragment (GUM promoter) and used it to drive expression of GFP in the kidney of transgenic mice.

Results: The GUM-GFP cassette was constructed and transgenic mice were generated in order to study the promoter's tissue specificity, the GFP kidney specific expression and its subcellular distribution.

Spider silk fibers spun from soluble recombinant silk produced in mammalian cells.

Spider silks are protein-based "biopolymer" filaments or threads secreted by specialized epithelial cells as concentrated soluble precursors of highly repetitive primary sequences. Spider dragline silk is a flexible, lightweight fiber of extraordinary strength and toughness comparable to that of synthetic high-performance fibers. We sought to "biomimic" the process of spider silk production by expressing in mammalian cells the dragline silk genes (ADF-3/MaSpII and MaSpI) of two spider species.