Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2019. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Apr 26, 2019; 7(8): 908-916
Published online Apr 26, 2019. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v7.i8.908
Exosomes in esophageal cancer: A review on tumorigenesis, diagnosis and therapeutic potential
Lin-Lin Su, Xiao-Jing Chang, Huan-Di Zhou, Liu-Bing Hou, Xiao-Ying Xue
Lin-Lin Su, Xiao-Jing Chang, Huan-Di Zhou, Liu-Bing Hou, Xiao-Ying Xue, Department of Radiotherapy, The Second Hospital of Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang 050000, Hebei Province, China
Huan-Di Zhou, Liu-Bing Hou, Department of Central Laboratory, The Second Hospital of Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang 050000, Hebei Province, China
Author contributions: All authors provided intellectual input for this manuscript; Su LL drafted the paper; Chang XJ and Hou LB revised and improved this article; Zhou HD and Xue XY proposed the idea and made critical revisions; All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Hebei Province, NO. H2018206307.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Authors declare no conflict of interests for this article.
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: Xiao-Ying Xue, MD, PhD, Professor, Department of Radiotherapy, The Second Hospital of Hebei Medical University, NO.215 Heping West Road, Shijiazhuang 050000, Hebei Province, China. xxy0636@163.com
Telephone: +86-311-66003709
Received: December 28, 2018
Peer-review started: December 29, 2018
First decision: January 18, 2019
Revised: February 28, 2019
Accepted: March 8, 2019
Article in press: March 9, 2019
Published online: April 26, 2019
Processing time: 119 Days and 18.7 Hours
Abstract

Exosomes are nanovesicles secreted from various types of cells and can be isolated from various bodily fluids, such as blood and urine. The number and molecular contents, including proteins and RNA of exosomes, have been shown to reflect their parental cell origins, characteristics and biological behaviors. An increasing number of studies have demonstrated that exosomes play a role in the course of tumorigenesis, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis, although its precise functions in tumors are still unclear. Moreover, owing to a lack of a standard approach, exosomes and its contents have not yet been put into clinical practice successfully. This review aims to summarize the current knowledge on exosomes and its contents in esophageal cancer as well as the current limitations/challenges in its clinical application, which may provide a basis for an all-around understanding of the implementation of exosomes and exosomal contents in the surveillance and therapy of esophageal cancer.

Keywords: Exosome; Esophageal cancer; Tumorigenesis; Biomarker; Therapeutic potential

Core tip: The exosome is a popular area of current research. Numerous studies have shown that exosomes may play an important role in the progression of esophageal cancer, but have not yet been applied to the clinic. This review systemically summarized the current knowledge on exosomes and its contents in esophageal cancer and pointed out the current limitations in its clinical application. This paper may provide a basis for an all-around understanding of the implementation of exosomes in esophageal cancer.