Title:The Emerging Roles of Extracellular Vesicles in Ovarian Cancer
Volume: 22
Issue: 2
Author(s): Yin-Xue Wang, Yi-Xiang Wang, Yi-Ke Li, Shi-Yan Tu and Yi-Qing Wang*
Affiliation:
- First Clinical Medical College of Lanzhou University, Gansu Key Laboratory of Reproductive Medicine and Embryo, Lanzhou,China
Keywords:
EVs, Exosomes, microRNAs, Ovarian cancer, Diagnosis, Drug resistance, Prognosis, Therapy.
Abstract:
Ovarian cancer (OC) is one of the deadliest gynecological malignancy. Epithelial ovarian cancer
(EOC) is its most common form. OC has both, a poor prognosis and a high mortality rate due to the difficulties
of early diagnosis, limitation of current treatment and resistance to chemotherapy. Extracellular vesicles (EVs)
is a heterogeneous group of cell-derived submicron vesicles, which can be detected in body fluids, and it can be
classified into three main types including exosomes, micro-vesicles, and apoptotic bodies.
Cancer cells can produce more EVs than healthy cells. Moreover, the contents of these EVs have been found
distinctive from each other. It has been considered that EVs shedding from tumor cells may be implicated in
clinical applications, such as a tool for tumor diagnosis, prognosis and potential treatment of certain cancers.
In this review, we provide a brief description of EVs. in diagnosis, prognosis, treatment, and drug-resistantance
of OC. Cancer-related EVs show powerful influences on tumors by various biological mechanisms. However,
the contents mentioned above remain in the laboratory stage and there is a lack of large-scale clinical trials, and
the maturity of the purification and detection methods is a constraint. In addition, amplification of oncogenes
on ecDNA is remarkably prevalent in cancer. It may be possible that ecDNA can be encapsulated in EVs and
thus detected by us. In summary, much more research on EVs needs to be performed to reveal breakthroughs in
OC and to accelerate the process of its application in clinic.