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Review
. 2021 Sep 3:16:6115-6127.
doi: 10.2147/IJN.S321555. eCollection 2021.

The Significance of Exosomes in Pathogenesis, Diagnosis, and Treatment of Esophageal Cancer

Zhao Jing  1 , Kai Chen  2 , Ling Gong  3
Affiliations
Review

The Significance of Exosomes in Pathogenesis, Diagnosis, and Treatment of Esophageal Cancer

Zhao Jing et al. Int J Nanomedicine. .

Abstract

Esophageal cancer is one of the most common malignancy in China with high mortality. Understanding pathogenesis and identifying early diagnosis biomarkers can significantly improve the prognosis of patients with esophageal cancer. Exosomes are small vesicular structures containing a variety of components (including DNA, RNA, and proteins) mediating cell-to-cell material exchange and signal communication. Growing evidences have shown that exosomes and its components are involved in growth, metastasis and angiogenesis in cancer, and could also be used as diagnostic and prognostic markers. In this review, we summarized recent progress to elucidate the significance of exosomes in the esophageal cancer progression, microenvironment remodeling, therapeutic resistance, and immunosuppression. We also discuss the utility of exosomes as diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers and therapeutic tool in esophageal cancer.

Keywords: biomarkers; esophageal cancer; exosome; liquid biopsy; prognosis.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The role of exosomes in esophageal cancer. Exosomes mediate cell-cell and cell-microenvironment communication through transferring the biologically components (DNA, RNA, and proteins) as well as contribute to esophageal cancer progression by regulating angiogenesis, epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT), immune escape, microenvironment remodeling, and therapeutic resistance.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The immune suppressive effects of esophageal cancer cells-derived exosomes. The underlying mechanisms of exosomes released from tumor cells participate in the development of immunosuppressive microenvironment of esophageal cancer.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Exosome as anti-tumor agents carriers for cancer therapy. Exosome can be loaded with drugs, miRNAs, or siRNAs exerting anti-tumor effect. Exosome-loaded tumor-associated antigen are able to promote anti-tumor immune response. Moreover, the expression of modified receptors in exosome can improve tumor-targeting ability.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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