Objective: To study the relationship between the whole blood zinc concentration and prostate carcinoma and to explore the diagnostic value of the whole blood zinc concentration combined with blood serum prostate specific antigen (PSA) for prostate cancer. Methods: A total of 95 patients with prostate carcinoma and 91 patients with benign prostate hyperplasia were selected between July 2005 and October 2008 in Zhongda Hospital of Southeast University and The Affiliated Drum Tower Hospital of Nanjing University Medical School. The whole blood zinc concentration was analyzed by atomic absorption spectometry. The serum PSA was analyzed by radioimmunoassay. Results: The volumes of the whole blood zinc concentration were 4.73±1.51 μg/mL in the prostate carcinoma group and 6.82±1.63 μg/mL in the benign prostate hyperplasia group, with a significant difference between the two groups (P＜0.001). The serum PSA general distribution was significantly different between the two groups (P＜0.01). There was no significant difference in the serum PSA of 4.0 to 10.0 ng/mL between the two groups (P=0.14). Compared with that in the benign prostate hyperplasia group, the area under ROC curve for the whole blood zinc concentration in the prostate carcinoma group was 0.82. The diagnostic accuracy was optimal with 5.24μg/mL set as the cut-off value of the whole blood zinc concentration and the Youden's index was 0.46 when it was combined with serum PSA 4.0 ng/mL (connection in series). The specificity was 75%, up to 2.34 times of serum PSA applied alone. Meanwhile, the Youden's index was 0.51, achieving 2.22 times. It was not helpful for the diagnosis of prostate carcinoma that the two diagnostic tools were in parallel by which the Youden's index was only 0.14. Conclusion: Detection of the whole blood zinc concentration is beneficial for differentiation of prostate carcinoma from benign prostate hyperplasia. Combined with serum PSA (connection in series), it can significantly impove diagnostic efficiency when PSA was 4.0～10.0ng/mL. Detection of the whole blood zinc concentration can provide valuable information for the diagnosis of prostate cancer and worths clincal application.

Objective To evaluate the inhibitory effect of asiaticoside on bleomycin-induced skin cicatrization. Methods Thirty male C57BL/6 mice were randomly divided into three groups:negative control group,model control group,and asiaticoside group,ten in each group.In model control group and asiaticoside group,1 mg·mL-1bleomycin was subcutaneously injected into the dorsal skin of mice every day;4 h later,1 mL 0.9% sodium chloride solution 1 mL asiaticoside(20 mg·mL-1) was injected into the lesion skin in the model control group and the asiaticoside group,respectively.In the negative control group, the same volume of 0.9% sodium chloride solution was subcutaneously injected into the dorsal skin of the mice at the two time points every day.After 21 days,skin specimens were harvested to observe the histomorphology and detect myofibroblast proliferation and expression of inflammatory factors. Results The skin scar was significantly attenuated in the asiaticoside group as compared with the model control group,and the dermal thickness measured exhibited a gradual decrease in asiaticoside group.The expression of α-antismooth muscle antisbidy and infiltration of inflammatory cells were significantly lower in the asiaticoside group than in the model control group. Conclusion Asiaticoside inhibits the development of skin scar of mice by regulating proliferation and differentiation of myofibroblasts and down-regulating inflammatory cells.

Objective: To explore the clinical application value of deep convoluti onal neural network for automatic detection and classification of benign and malignant thyroid nodules ultrasound images. Methods: A total of 1 012 ultrasound images of thyroid nodules were retrospectively selected and labeled. The YOLOv5 network model was constructed to accurately locate the location of thyroid nodules and automatically trim the area of the nodules. At the same time , a GoogLeNet network model was constructed to classify benign and malignant nodules after reduction. Results : In the collected data set , the mean accuracy of the target detection network for thyroid nodule location detection was 96. 2% . Meanwhile , the sensitivity, specificity, accuracy and AUC of the classification network for benign and malignant nodules were 0. 885 ,0. 822 ,0. 866 and 0. 92 respectively ,which were significantly higher than those of the AlexNet model (0. 81) , VGG model (0. 86) and MobileNet model (0. 76) . Conclusion The deep convo⁃ lutional neural network model has high localization and recognition ability for benign and malignant thyroid nodules in ultrasound images ,which is helpful to improve the accuracy of automatic image diagnosis.

In the original publication Fig. 1D and supplementary material is incorrect. The correct figure and supplementary material is provided in this correction.

Recently we have established a new culture condition enabling the derivation of extended pluripotent stem (EPS) cells, which, compared to conventional pluripotent stem cells, possess superior developmental potential and germline competence. However, it remains unclear whether this condition permits derivation of EPS cells from mouse strains that are refractory or non-permissive to pluripotent cell establishment. Here, we show that EPS cells can be robustly generated from non-permissive NOD-scid Il2rg mice through de novo derivation from blastocysts. Furthermore, these cells can also be efficiently generated by chemical reprogramming from embryonic NOD-scid Il2rg fibroblasts. NOD-scid Il2rg EPS cells can be expanded for more than 20 passages with genomic stability and can be genetically modified through gene targeting. Notably, these cells contribute to both embryonic and extraembryonic lineages in vivo. More importantly, they can produce chimeras and integrate into the E13.5 genital ridge. Our study demonstrates the feasibility of generating EPS cells from refractory mouse strains, which could potentially be a general strategy for deriving mouse pluripotent cells. The generation of NOD-scid Il2rg EPS cell lines permits sophisticated genetic modification in NOD-scid Il2rg mice, which may greatly advance the optimization of humanized mouse models for biomedical applications.