Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) have shown a prognostic value in clinical tumor diagnosis, CTCs and related liquid biopsy technique have become a new hot focus for clinical diagnosis of tumor study in recent years.This review evaluates the limitation of CTCs′ applications in clinical studies and makes some suggestions for the future clinical application in order to promote the development of liquid biopsy technique.

Presently, there are 3 problems in the study of human embryonic pluripotent stem cells: short of materials, complicacy of culture system and spontaneous differentiation. Both basic research and clinical application of human embryonic pluripotent stem cells were hindered by these 3 basic problems. New embryonic pluripotent stem cells should be established by combining nucleus transfer and plasma reprograming, and their possible mechanisms and key factors need further study. The culture system should be simplified and cell differentiation must be inhibited when pluripotent stem cell is cultured. When pluripotent stem cells are induced to differentiation, combination of several methods should be used to induce and select specific cell lineages, and the morphology and function of the target cell must be evaluated.

All types of blood cells are derived from a common precursor:the hematopoietic stem cell.Hematopoietic stem cells can be found in different locations of the developing vertebrate organism. Hematopoiesis is a dynamic process sustained by cytokine induced production and activities of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells.A number of different cytokines,cells,and cytokine cell interactions are involved in regulating the hematopoiesis. Some cytokines have more than one functions partially due to their actions on different target cells.These actions are mediated through specific receptors transmiting intracellular signals.These signals give the stem and progenitor cells critical information to survive,proliferate, differentiate or to migrate. This paper is to review recent developments in some of the major signal transduction pathways influencing hematopoietic growth and differentiation with a particular emphasis on myeloid cells.

The Oct4,a POU transcription factor belongs to class Ⅴ of POU proteins, is expressed in mouse totipotent embryonic stem and germ cells. Oct4 plays a critical role in maintaining pluripotency of stem cell when it differentiates into a trophectoderm lineage at early stage of mouse embryo. Oct4 expression appears to be regulated by a positional effect as well as specific regulating elements of Oct4 such as proximal enhancer (PE) and distal enhancer (DE). Oct4 has both repression and activation effects in regulating transcription,and the activation has 3 models: distance dependent transactivation, conformational transactivation and Oct4 dimers dependent transactivation.

The germ cell lineage in the mouse is established during gastrulation;sex determination is achieved after germ cell migrating to the site of the future gonads. Germ cells proliferate indefinitely when cultured in vitro . Human embryonic germ(EG) cells have been recently established;these immortalized EG cells are chromosomally stable and pluripotent, raising the hope that their differentiation can be directed to specific cell types, which may be of value in the clinical treatment of degenerative diseases.

Precision medicine is an emerging approach for disease treatment and prevention , which attempts to explore the effective means for protecting human health by synthetical consideration of individual variability in genes , environment and life style.Precision medicine has the prominent property of multidisciplinary intercrossing and fusion , the development of which claims rapid clinical application of advanced technology in the research of basic medical science.What kind of development opportunities are laboratory medicine confronted with under the novel medical mode? How can laboratory medicine and its researchers do to seize these opportunities and meet the challenges of precision medicine ? These questions are preliminary discussed in this paper.

Mu-guk-bo-yang-tm (tm means moxibustion), which Nam-soo Kim has developed from extensive clinical findings through acupuncture and moxibustion applications for over 80 years. Mu-guk-bo-yang-tm inclucing Zusanli (ST36), Quchi (LI11), Zhongwan (CV12), Feishu (BL13), Gaohuang (BL43), Baihui (GV 20), Qihai (CV6), Guanyuan (CV4) [Zhongji (CV3) and Shuidao (ST28) replace Qihai (CV 6) and Guanyuan (CV4) for women]. Do moxibustion 3-5 cones on every point with half the size of a rice of moxa every day.

The modern laboratory developed tests (LDTs) plays a very important role in the development of precision medicine and clinical laboratory diagnosis. The perfect LDTs inspection platform not only requires strict quality control system and management standards, but also requires technical support from high-end professional teams. By combing the development process of LDTs, this paper discusses the significance of developing LDTs in the context of precision medicine, the positive role played by the development of laboratory medicine and the cultivation of laboratory talents, and how to effectively develop LDTs.

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are thought to drive uncontrolled tumor growth, and the existence of CSCs has recently been proven by direct experimental evidence, including tracing cell lineages within a growing tumor. However, CSCs must be analyzed in additional cancer types. Cancer stem cell-like cells (CSCLCs) are a good alternative system for the study of CSCs, which hold great promise for clinical applications. OCT4, NANOG, and SOX2 are three basic transcription factors that are expressed in both CSCLCs and embryonic stem cells (ESCs). These transcription factors play critical roles in maintaining the pluripotence and self-renewal characteristics of CSCLCs and ESCs. In this review, we discuss the aberrant expression, isoforms, and pseudogenes of OCT4, NANOG, and SOX2 in the CSCLC niche, which contribute to the major differences between CSCLCs and ESCs. We also highlight an anticancer therapy that involves killing specific cancer cells directly by repressing the expression of OCT4, NANOG, or SOX2. Importantly, OCT4, NANOG, and SOX2 provide great promise for clinical applications because reducing their expression or blocking the pathways in which they function may inhibit tumor growth and turn-off the cancer "switch." In the future, a clear understanding of transcription factor regulation will be essential for elucidating the roles of OCT4, NANOG, and SOX2 in tumorigenesis, as well as exploring their use for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes.
Animals ; Embryonic Stem Cells ; metabolism ; Homeodomain Proteins ; metabolism ; Humans ; Nanog Homeobox Protein ; Neoplasms ; metabolism ; pathology ; Neoplastic Stem Cells ; metabolism ; Octamer Transcription Factor-3 ; metabolism ; SOXB1 Transcription Factors ; metabolism ; Signal Transduction

Objective:To evaluate the feasibility of a predictire model composed of non-specific test indexes in early diagnosis of gastric cancer.Methods:From the database of electronic medical record system of Shanghai Changhai Hospital, a total of 24 615 case records were included from January 1, 2010 to April 30, 2019, including 10 497 cases of gastric cancer, 5 198 cases of precancerous diseases, and 8 920 cases of health examination. Through stratified random sampling, the study population was divided into validation set, training set and test set. After data processing and quality control for all laboratory variables, the optimal machine learning algorithm and diagnostic efficiency grouping were selected through four machine learning algorithms, induding the gradient boosting decision tree, random forest, support vector machine, and artificial neural network, and the data were trained by backward stepwise regression method to build the best feature model.Result:In this study, a diagnostic model V22 consisting of 22 routine testing parameters was established. V22 could distinguish early gastric cancer from control group composed of healthy group and precancerous disease, AUC was 0.808, the sensitivity was 85.7%, and the specificity was 91.9%. For CEA negative gastric cancer, V22 also showed high diagnostic accuracy, AUC was 0.801.Conclusion:V22 was a valuable model for the diagnosis of gastric cancer. V22 was an auxiliary diagnostic model of gastric cancer with clinical application value, which could well distinguish early gastric cancer from the control group composed of healthy group and precancerous disease, and the detection rate of early gastric cancer was better than the traditional tumor marker CEA.