Main text Colon cancer,one of the most common cancers in the world[1]and China[2,3],is typically diagnosed in its advanced stages.However,only a mediocre 20%-30%of these patients can have curative resection,but still,...Main text Colon cancer,one of the most common cancers in the world[1]and China[2,3],is typically diagnosed in its advanced stages.However,only a mediocre 20%-30%of these patients can have curative resection,but still,they are at high risk of recurrent disease[4].Given that recur-rent disease is especially associated with poor outcomes,optimizing the therapeutic strategy is paramount.Adju-vant chemotherapy,a standard treatment for stage II/III colon cancer,is often accompanied by a significant increase in survival[5,6].Thus,timely adjuvant therapy is primordial for reducing postoperative recurrence risk.To assess the risk of postoperative recurrence,biomark-ers of greater prognostic essence than traditional clin-icopathology are urgently needed.The emerging role of circular RNAs(circRNAs),a newly discovered type of regulatory RNAs,has shed light on whether these mol-ecules can serve as biomarkers for predicting the post-operative recurrence of colon cancer.circRNAs are characterized by a covalently closed loop that is capa-ble of regulating gene expression at the transcriptional or post-transcriptional levels[7].They can also bind to proteins and thereby regulate the intracellular signaling pathways[8,9].Recent reports have described the roles of circRNAs in the initiation and progression of cancer[10-12],and increasing evidence have demonstrated that circRNAs may serve as molecular biomarkers to facili-tate diagnostic and prognostic evaluations[13].However,the potential of circRNAs for diagnosing and prognosing colon cancer is less clear.展开更多
文摘Main text Colon cancer,one of the most common cancers in the world[1]and China[2,3],is typically diagnosed in its advanced stages.However,only a mediocre 20%-30%of these patients can have curative resection,but still,they are at high risk of recurrent disease[4].Given that recur-rent disease is especially associated with poor outcomes,optimizing the therapeutic strategy is paramount.Adju-vant chemotherapy,a standard treatment for stage II/III colon cancer,is often accompanied by a significant increase in survival[5,6].Thus,timely adjuvant therapy is primordial for reducing postoperative recurrence risk.To assess the risk of postoperative recurrence,biomark-ers of greater prognostic essence than traditional clin-icopathology are urgently needed.The emerging role of circular RNAs(circRNAs),a newly discovered type of regulatory RNAs,has shed light on whether these mol-ecules can serve as biomarkers for predicting the post-operative recurrence of colon cancer.circRNAs are characterized by a covalently closed loop that is capa-ble of regulating gene expression at the transcriptional or post-transcriptional levels[7].They can also bind to proteins and thereby regulate the intracellular signaling pathways[8,9].Recent reports have described the roles of circRNAs in the initiation and progression of cancer[10-12],and increasing evidence have demonstrated that circRNAs may serve as molecular biomarkers to facili-tate diagnostic and prognostic evaluations[13].However,the potential of circRNAs for diagnosing and prognosing colon cancer is less clear.
