Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2020 Feb 19;21(4):1398.
doi: 10.3390/ijms21041398.

Exosomal Non Coding RNA in LIQUID Biopsies as a Promising Biomarker for Colorectal Cancer

Amro Baassiri  1 , Farah Nassar  2 , Deborah Mukherji  2 , Ali Shamseddine  2 , Rihab Nasr  1 , Sally Temraz  2
Affiliations
Review

Exosomal Non Coding RNA in LIQUID Biopsies as a Promising Biomarker for Colorectal Cancer

Amro Baassiri et al. Int J Mol Sci. .

Abstract

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common cancers worldwide, with a high mortality rate, especially in those that are diagnosed in late stages of the disease. The current screening blood-based markers, such as carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA19-9), have low sensitivity and specificity. Meanwhile, other modalities are either expensive or invasive. Therefore, recent research has shifted towards a minimally invasive test, namely, liquid biopsy. Exosomes are favorable molecules sought in blood samples, since they are abundant, stable in circulation, and harbor genetic information and other biomolecules that could serve as biomarkers or even therapeutic targets. Furthermore, exosomal noncoding RNAs, such as miRNAs, lncRNAs, and circRNAs, have demonstrated the diagnostic potential to detect CRC at an early stage with a higher sensitivity and specificity than CEA and CA19-9 alone. Moreover, they have prognostic potential that is TNM stage specific and could serve as predictive biomarkers for the most common chemotherapeutic drug and combination regimen in CRC, which are 5-FU and FOLFOX, respectively. Therefore, in this review, we focus on the role of these exosomal noncoding RNAs as diagnostic, prognostic, and predictive biomarkers. In addition, we discuss the advantages and challenges of exosomes as a liquid biopsy target.

Keywords: circRNA; colorectal cancer; exosome; liquid biopsy; lncRNA; miRNA.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Exosome biogenesis and role in colorectal cancer (CRC).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. De Rubis G., Krishnan S.R., Bebawy M. Liquid biopsies in cancer diagnosis, monitoring, and prognosis. Trends Pharmacol. Sci. 2019;40:172–186. doi: 10.1016/j.tips.2019.01.006. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Kidess E., Jeffrey S.S. Circulating tumor cells versus tumor-derived cell-free DNA: Rivals or partners in cancer care in the era of single-cell analysis? Genome Med. 2013;5:70. doi: 10.1186/gm474. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Siravegna G., Marsoni S., Siena S., Bardelli A. Integrating liquid biopsies into the management of cancer. Nat. Rev. Clin. Oncol. 2017;14:531. doi: 10.1038/nrclinonc.2017.14. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Wang Y., Chen P.-M., Liu R.-B. Advance in plasma SEPT9 gene methylation assay for colorectal cancer early detection. World J. Gastrointest. Oncol. 2018;10:15. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v10.i1.15. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. El Messaoudi S., Mouliere F., Du Manoir S., Bascoul-Mollevi C., Gillet B., Nouaille M., Fiess C., Crapez E., Bibeau F., Theillet C. Circulating DNA as a strong multimarker prognostic tool for metastatic colorectal cancer patient management care. Clin. Cancer Res. 2016;22:3067–3077. doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-15-0297. - DOI - PubMed