Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Oncol. Jul 24, 2021; 12(7): 507-521
Published online Jul 24, 2021. doi: 10.5306/wjco.v12.i7.507
Proteoglycans and their functions in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma
Yun Zhu, Annie Lai Man Cheung
Yun Zhu, Annie Lai Man Cheung, School of Biomedical Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Author contributions: Zhu Y and Cheung ALM contributed to the writing, literature review, and/or critical revision of the manuscript; Zhu Y is specially credited with design and preparation of the figures.
Supported by Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong SAR, China, No. 17111016 and No. 17100819.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors report no conflict of interest and no financial disclosures.
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: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Annie Lai Man Cheung, BSc, PhD, Associate Professor, School of Biomedical Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Laboratory Block, No. 21 Sassoon Road, Hong Kong, China. lmcheung@hku.hk
Received: February 5, 2021
Peer-review started: February 5, 2021
First decision: March 31, 2021
Revised: April 13, 2021
Accepted: June 2, 2021
Article in press: June 2, 2021
Published online: July 24, 2021
Processing time: 166 Days and 5.6 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is a highly malignant human cancer because of its early metastasis and late diagnosis. Cancer metastasis involves multiple steps that involve cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions in the tumor microenvironment. Proteoglycans are one of the components of the extracellular matrix that play an important role in cell-matrix interactions. We herein summarize the proteoglycans that have been studied in ESCC to provide a comprehensive view of the role of proteoglycans in ESCC.