Following a brief introduction of relaxin family members, receptors and related signalling pathways,we review effects of relaxin on cardiovascular system,particularly,its anti-fibrotic action.The heart and vessels are target organs of relaxin.Recent studies have documented that the relaxin genes are upregulated in the diseased heart of humans and experimental animals.In several animal disease models,relaxin can reverse cardiac fibrosis.Relaxin may also indirectly promote myocardial regeneration and repair by suppressing fibrotic healing.Further research needs to focus on elucidating the exact mechanisms utilized by relaxin to induce these cardiac actions and translation of experimental findings to novel therapy of cardiovascular disease.

Wnt gene family has been shown to encode the multifunctional signaling glycoproteins that are involved in the regulation of a wide variety of normal and pathologic processes,including embriogenesis,differentiation,and tumorigenesis.Recent studies have demonstrated that the Wnt-5a expression is frequently deregulated in various human cancers,which suggested that Wnt5a shuld be a good marker for progression and prognosis of tumor,but the role of Wnt-5a is controversial in different tumors.Here,we assemble evidence of possible relations between Wnt and various tumors.

Gastric cancer is a malignant tumor with high incidence and mortality in China.Invasion and metastasis of carcinotissue is one of the main reasons for the death of patients with gastric cancer.The mechanism of gastric cancer invasion and metastasis is very complicated,containing several immunomolecules and genes.Up-or down-regulated expression of these molecules in gastric cancer invasion and metastasis means that these immunomolecules and genes play some important roles in generation and progression of gastric cancer.In this review,we introduced the structure and function of these immunomolecules and genes,and their action during the course of gastric cancer invasion and metastasis.

Papillary carcinoma is one of the commonest tumors in the thyroid.The pathologic diagnosis of papillary carcinoma as well as follicular carcinoma and follicular adenoma of the thyroid are based on the morphology observation hitherto.However,the diagnostic value of immunostaining for distinction among differentiated neoplasm of the thyroid was so far absent.With the identification of the special markers of lymphatic vessel endothelial cell by immunohistochemical method in the recent years,the rapid progress in the research of lymphangiogenesis of the tumors had been made.This article briefly reviewed the progress of the special markers of lymphatic vessel endothelial cell and vascular endothelial growth factors in the differentiated neoplasm of the thyroid.

EphA1,the first member of the Eph receptor tyrosine kinase family,not only plays a pivotal role in embryonic development and angiogenesis,but also expresses in some types of adult human tissues.Its specific characteristics of Eph/ephrin binding and the Eph/ephrin signaling transduction are fundamentally involved in tumor initiation,progression and metastasis.The expression levels of EphA1 vary considerably in different types of normal tissues and tumors,or even in different phases of tumor development,suggestive of its functional pluralism.Intensive studies of EphA1 on angiogenesis,carcinogenesis and metastasis may provide a method for the early diagnosis and a potential target for the treatment of cancers.

Castleman's disease(CD),known as giant lymph node hyperplasia,is a rare lymphoproliferative disorder,whose etiology has not been definitively established.Clinically CD is categorized into unicentric and multicentric,and histologically,subdivided into three subtypes,hyaline vascular variant,plasma cell variant and mixed variant.Different variants usually require inconsistent therapeutic measures and have different prognoses.The present paper gives an overview of the pathogenesis,treatment and prognosis of CD,with emphasis on the stroma-rich variant,a special subtype of CD of the hyaline vascular variant.

Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) is a non-radioactive technique by use of fluorescently labeled DNA probes in detecting chromosomal alterations in cells. As a new molecular cytological method, it can detect various types of cytogenetic alterations, including deletion, amplification and translocation, as well as improve the accuracy of pathological diagnosis if combined with histomorphology. This review focuses on the application of FISH to the detection of some solid tumors.

Sinusoid lining endothelial cell(SEC) of the liver is a group of cells different from vessel lining endothelial cells with high heterogeneity characteristics, it shows many biological functions in normal liver and plays a role in liver injury caused by acute and chronic liver diseases as well as fibrogenesis. Increasing attention has been paid to the capillarization in hepatocellular carcinoma in recently years, some studies showed that SEC is attributed to the formation of capillarization with changes of the immunophenotype, such as expression of CD34.The pathological study of SEC on liver disease was briefly reviewed in this paper.

The classifications of the thymoma and their pathologic diagnosis is closely related to the clinical treatment of the disease. Similarly, it is a focal on the clinicopathologic study today. In this paper,the classification of the thymoma and their developing process in the histopathological changes was extensively discussed, and various type of the histopatholgic characteristic of the tumor was compared. It was suggested the new edition of the thymoma classifications of WHO should be operated in practical work. Additionally, the B1 type thymom, the thymic lymphoma and the histopathological changes of thymus in myasthenia gravis patients were described respectively, and it was also considered that the new edition of the thymoma classifications of WHO had some incomplete aspects in the pathological diagnosis.

With the quick development revelant techniques, proteomics is a very active subject in modern biological fields. The key techniques of proteomics are two dimensional electrophoresis, mass spectrometry and bioinformatics. From the new point of view, proteomics may play a vital role in the early detection of neoplasm by looking for tumor specific protein and elucidating the relationship between the change of expression and different phases of tumorigenesis. The article briefly review the relevant technique, strategy and application for the early diagnosis of in digestive system tumors.