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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2019. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Nov 15, 2019; 11(11): 946-956
Published online Nov 15, 2019. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v11.i11.946
Endothelial cells in colorectal cancer
Wu-Zhen Chen, Jing-Xin Jiang, Xiu-Yan Yu, Wen-Jie Xia, Peng-Xin Yu, Ke Wang, Zhi-Yong Zhao, Zhi-Gang Chen
Wu-Zhen Chen, Jing-Xin Jiang, Xiu-Yan Yu, Peng-Xin Yu, Ke Wang, Zhi-Gang Chen, Department of Surgical Oncology, Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou 310000, Zhejiang Province, China
Wu-Zhen Chen, Jing-Xin Jiang, Xiu-Yan Yu, Peng-Xin Yu, Ke Wang, Zhi-Gang Chen, Key Laboratory of Tumor Microenvironment and Immune Therapy of Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou, China
Wen-Jie Xia, Department of Breast Surgery, Zhejiang Provincial People’s Hospital, Hangzhou 310000, Zhejiang Province, China
Zhi-Yong Zhao, Department of Administrative Office, the First People’s Hospital of Jiande, Hangzhou 310000, Zhejiang Province, China
Author contributions: Chen WZ, Jiang JX, Yu XY contributed equally to this paper. All authors equally contributed to this paper with conception and design of the study, literature review and analysis, drafting and critical revision and editing, and final approval of the final version.
Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 81502564, No. 81972598; the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province, No. LY16H160018, No. LY18H160001; the scholarship from China Scholarship Council (CSC) under the Grant CSC, No. 201706325003.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No potential conflicts of interest.
Open-Access: 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/
Corresponding author: Zhi-Gang Chen, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Surgical Oncology, Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, 88 Zheda Road, Hangzhou 310000, Zhejiang Province, China. chenzhigang@zju.edu.cn
Telephone: +86-571-87784642 Fax: +86-571-87214404
Received: February 21, 2019
Peer-review started: February 22, 2019
First decision: July 31, 2019
Revised: August 18, 2019
Accepted: September 26, 2019
Article in press: September 26, 2019
Published online: November 15, 2019
Processing time: 267 Days and 21.5 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: In 1971, Folkman highlighted the importance of angiogenesis in tumor growth. The key events involved in this process are endothelial cell proliferation, migration, and vascular formation. Recent studies have revealed the importance of tumor-associated endothelial cells (TECs) in the development and progression of colorectal cancer (CRC). However, few systematically reviewed the role of TECs in CRC. Our objective is to compare the characteristics of normal endothelial cells and TECs, review the role of TECs in the stages of CRC, and discuss the possibility of TECs to serve as a biomarker to predict the prognosis and a potential therapeutic target.