Objective To investigate the expression of tumor necrosis factor alpha(TNF-α)and its relationship with infiltrating lymphocytes in lichen planus(LP).Methods Tissue specimens were obtained from the lesions of 60 patients with LP and normal skin of 20 human controls.Immunohistochemical SP method was used to detect the expression of TNF-α,and infiltrating lymphocytes were counted in TNF-α-positive tissue sections.Results TNF-α was expressed in 72％ of the LP specimens but in none of the control specimens(P ＜ 0.01).Positive staining for TNF-α was mainly located in the membrane of prickle cells,cytoplasm or membrane of dermal infiltrating lymphocytes.The expression of TNF-α in LP was uncorrelated with age,sex or disease course(all P ＞ 0.05),but was positively correlated with infiltrating lymphocyte number (rs =0.47,P ＜ 0.01).Conclusion TNF-α seems to play a certain role in the pathogenesis of LP.

Abstract Pancreatic cancer is a highly malignant gastrointestinal cancer with a poor prognosis, and early diagnosis remains challenging. The use of reliable biomarkers can significantly enhance the early evaluation and management of this disease. Circulating tumor cells(CTCs) are released into the bloodstream and can be obtained easily through minimally invasive liquid-based biopsy, making them promising candidates for early tumor diagnosis, prognosis assessment, and monitoring therapeutic responses. This paper reviews the advancements in CTCs detection technology and their clinical applications in pancreatic cancer over the past decade, both domestically and internationally, which offer a new perspective on the early diagnosis and prognosis of pancreatic cancer.

Significantly increasing crop yield is a major and worldwide challenge for food supply and security. It is well-known that rice cultivated at Taoyuan in Yunnan of China can produce the highest yield worldwide. Yet, the gene regulatory mechanism underpinning this ultrahigh yield has been a mystery. Here, we systematically collected the transcriptome data for seven key tissues at different developmental stages using rice cultivated both at Taoyuan as the case group and at another regular rice planting place Jinghong as the control group. We identified the top 24 candi-date high-yield genes with their network modules from these well-designed datasets by developing a novel computational systems biology method, i.e., dynamic cross-tissue (DCT) network analysis. We used one of the candidate genes, OsSPL4, whose function was previously unknown, for gene editing experimental validation of the high yield, and confirmed that OsSPL4 significantly affects panicle branching and increases the rice yield. This study, which included extensive field phenotyping, cross-tissue systems biology analyses, and functional validation, uncovered the key genes and gene regulatory networks underpinning the ultrahigh yield of rice. The DCT method could be applied to other plant or animal systems if different phenotypes under various environments with the common genome sequences of the examined sample. DCT can be downloaded from https://github.com/zt-pub/DCT.