A REVIEW OF THE ROLE, MECHANISMS, AND APPLICATIONS OF EXOSOMES IN GASTRIC CANCER

Shantanu Baral, Mubeen Hussein Arawker, Qiannan Sun, Mingrui Jiang and Daorong Wang*

ABSTRACT

Gastric cancer (GC) is a malignant disease characterized by a high mortality rate and rapid progression. In recent years, the five-year survival rate of patients with GC has slightly increased due to advances in surgical resection, chemotherapy, and targeted therapies. Due to the lack of effective early diagnoses, the prognosis for GC is poor, given that metastasis has usually already occurred in the majority of patients at the time of diagnosis. Hence, elucidating the mechanisms underlying GC metastasis has become an important research objective. Exosomes are extracellular vesicles that contain nucleic acids, proteins, and other molecules that are used to transmit information between cells. Recently, several studies have revealed that exosomes play an important role in cancer metastasis and may serve as useful molecular markers for cancer diagnosis; therefore, they provide a unique avenue for developing precise cancer treatments. We offer a brief overview of the roles of exosomes in GC metastasis along with their mechanisms and underlying functions in this review.

Keywords: gastric cancer (GC); exosome; biomarker; Proliferation and apoptosis; Invasion and metastasis; Tumor resistance.