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Review
. 2021 Jun;35(6):e23810.
doi: 10.1002/jcla.23810. Epub 2021 May 3.

Relationship between microsatellite status and immune microenvironment of colorectal cancer and its application to diagnosis and treatment

Junge Bai  1 , Hongsheng Chen  2 , Xuefeng Bai  3
Affiliations
Review

Relationship between microsatellite status and immune microenvironment of colorectal cancer and its application to diagnosis and treatment

Junge Bai et al. J Clin Lab Anal. 2021 Jun.

Abstract

Due to advances in understanding the immune microenvironment of colorectal cancer (CRC), microsatellite classification (dMMR/MSI-H and pMMR/MSS) has become a key biomarker for the diagnosis and treatment of CRC patients and therefore has important clinical value. Microsatellite status is associated with a variety of clinicopathological features and affects drug resistance and the prognosis of patients. CRC patients with different microsatellite statuses have different compositions and distributions of immune cells and cytokines within their tumor microenvironments (TMEs). Therefore, there is great interest in reversing or reshaping CRC TMEs to transform immune tolerant "cold" tumors into immune sensitive "hot" tumors. This requires a thorough understanding of differences in the immune microenvironments of MSI-H and MSS type tumors. This review focuses on the relationship between CRC microsatellite status and the immune microenvironment. It focuses on how this relationship has value for clinical application in diagnosis and treatment, as well as exploring the limitations of its current application.

Keywords: colorectal cancer; diagnosis and treatment; immune microenvironment; microsatellite status.

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Conflict of interest statement

None of the authors has any financial support or relationships that may pose a conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
The main differences of TME among different MSI types
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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