OncoTargets and Therapy (May 2021)
Emerging Mechanisms and Treatment Progress on Liver Metastasis of Colorectal Cancer
Abstract
Wubin Zheng,1,* Fan Wu,1,* Kai Fu,1,* Guangshun Sun,1 Guoqiang Sun,1 Xiao Li,1 Wei Jiang,1 Hongyong Cao,1 Hanjin Wang,1 Weiwei Tang2 1Department of General Surgery, Nanjing First Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, People’s Republic of China; 2Hepatobiliary/Liver Transplantation Center, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Key Laboratory of Living Donor Transplantation, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Nanjing, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Hongyong Cao; Hanjin Wang Email [email protected]; [email protected]: Colorectal cancer is currently the third largest malignant tumor in the world, with high new cases and high mortality. Metastasis is one of the most common causes of death of colorectal cancer, of which liver metastasis is the most fatal. Since the beginning of the Human Genome Project in 2001, people have gradually recognized the 3 billion base pairs that make up the human genome, of which only about 1.5% of the nucleic acid sequences are used for protein coding, including proto-oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes. A large number of differences in the expression of proto-oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes have also been found in the study of colorectal cancer, which proves that they are also actively involved in the progression of colorectal cancer and promote the occurrence of liver metastasis. Except for 1.5% of the coding sequence, the rest of the nucleic acid sequence does not encode any protein, which is called non-coding RNA. With the deepening of research, genome sequences without protein coding potential that were originally considered “junk sequences” may have important biological functions. Many years of studies have found that a large number of abnormal expression of ncRNA in colorectal cancer liver metastasis, indicating that ncRNA plays an important role in it. To explore the role and mechanism of these coding sequences and non-coding RNA in liver metastasis of colorectal cancer is very important for the early diagnosis and treatment of liver metastasis of colorectal cancer. This article reviews the coding genes and ncRNA that have been found in the study of liver metastasis of colorectal cancer in recent years, as well as the mechanisms that have been identified or are still under study, as well as the clinical treatment of liver metastasis of colorectal cancer.Keywords: colorectal cancer, liver metastasis, mechanisms, treatment
