Wu Z, Fang ZX, Hou YY, Wu BX, Deng Y, Wu HT, Liu J. Exosomes in metastasis of colorectal cancers: Friends or foes? World J Gastrointest Oncol 2023; 15(5): 731-756 [PMID: 37275444 DOI: 10.4251/wjgo.v15.i5.731]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Jing Liu, MD, PhD, Academic Research, Associate Professor, Research Scientist, Senior Scientist, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory for Diagnosis and Treatment of Breast Cancer, Cancer Hospital of Shantou University Medical College, No. 22 Xinling Road, Shantou 515041, Guangdong Province, China. jliu12@stu.edu.cn
Research Domain of This Article
Oncology
Article-Type of This Article
Review
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Zheng Wu, Ze-Xuan Fang, Yan-Yu Hou, Jing Liu, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory for Diagnosis and Treatment of Breast Cancer, Cancer Hospital of Shantou University Medical College, Shantou 515041, Guangdong Province, China
Bing-Xuan Wu, Yu Deng, Hua-Tao Wu, Department of General Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Shantou University Medical College, Shantou 515041, Guangdong Province, China
Author contributions: Wu Z contributed to this work; Fang ZX, Hou YY, Wu BX and Deng Y participated in the writing of the manuscript; Wu HT and Liu J reviewed the manuscript and contacted the journals; All authors have read and approve the final manuscript.
Supported byNational Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 82273457; Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, No. 2021A1515012180 and 2016A030312008; Special Grant for Key Area Programs of Guangdong Department of Education, No. 2021ZDZX2040; and Science and Technology Special Project of Guangdong Province, No. 210715216902829.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Jing Liu, MD, PhD, Academic Research, Associate Professor, Research Scientist, Senior Scientist, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory for Diagnosis and Treatment of Breast Cancer, Cancer Hospital of Shantou University Medical College, No. 22 Xinling Road, Shantou 515041, Guangdong Province, China. jliu12@stu.edu.cn
Received: December 7, 2022 Peer-review started: December 7, 2022 First decision: February 23, 2023 Revised: March 7, 2023 Accepted: April 4, 2023 Article in press: April 4, 2023 Published online: May 15, 2023
Abstract
Colorectal cancer (CRC), the third most common type of cancer worldwide, threaten human health and quality of life. With multidisciplinary, including surgery, chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy, patients with an early diagnosis of CRC can have a good prognosis. However, metastasis in CRC patients is the main risk factor causing cancer-related death. To elucidate the underlying molecular mechanisms of CRC metastasis is the difficult and research focus on the investigation of the CRC mechanism. On the other hand, the tumor microenvironment (TME) has been confirmed as having an essential role in the tumorigenesis and metastasis of malignancies, including CRCs. Among the different factors in the TME, exosomes as extracellular vesicles, function as bridges in the communication between cancer cells and different components of the TME to promote the progression and metastasis of CRC. MicroRNAs packaged in exosomes can be derived from different sources and transported into the TME to perform oncogenic or tumor-suppressor roles accordingly. This article focuses on CRC exosomes and illustrates their role in regulating the metastasis of CRC, especially through the packaging of miRNAs, to evoke exosomes as novel biomarkers for their impact on the metastasis of CRC progression.
Core Tip: Exosomes, the extracellular vesicles function as connectors in communication between cancer cells and different components of the tumor microenvironment (TME). The miRNAs packaged into exosomes were derived from different sources and transported into the TME, performing oncogenesis or tumor-suppressor roles.
