The Role of Extracellular Vesicles in Diagnosis, Prognosis And Treatment Of Patients with Gastrointestinal Cancer

During the occurrence and development of gastrointestinal malignancies, a variety of cells, including tumor cells, tumor stromal cells, and tumor-related immune cells, will secret a large number of specific extracellular vesicles (EVs). As the "messenger" of inter-cell communication, EVs play an important role by transporting bioactive molecules such as proteins, nucleic acids, and lipids to recipient cells to realize inter-cell communication. Because EVs released by tumor cells are protected by lipid bilayer, they are not easy to degrade and have high stability, which enables EVs to circulate in the extracellular space until they reach the target cells. When EVs are endocytic by target cells, tumor-derived EVs can change the function and phenotype of target cells, and can also mediate the signal and material transmission between various cells in the tumor microenvironment. EVs can affect the surrounding and distant non-tumor cells, thus further affecting the proliferation, transmission, and metastasis of tumors. The progression of cancer is a complex process, in which exosomes are involved in almost every stage. Exosomes can realize the communication between different cells in the tumor microenvironment and play a crucial role in the occurrence, development, metastasis, immune escape, and other processes of tumors. With the deepening of research on EVs by researchers around the world, their secretion, release, plasma membrane fusion, and communication roles have been further revealed, and EVs have shown their great potential value in the development of gastrointestinal malignancies.

It is very important to accurately and timely carry out early screening, diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment effect evaluation for patients with digestive tract malignant tumor. Currently, proteins, lipids, nucleic acid contents (miRNA, siRNA, lncRNA, circRNA, etc.), and other biologically active substances contained in exosomes (EVs) have become the key to the breakthrough in the early screening, diagnosis, prognosis assessment, and therapeutic effect assessment of gastrointestinal tumors. Moreover, because of having almost no immune rejection, the "homing effect" of EVs can be used to target specific tissues or cells in the body. At the same time, EVs are also an ideal carrier of drugs or bioactive substances. In clinical practice, EVs is gradually developed as therapeutic agent or targeting carriers, which has great potential applicatison value.

We welcome submissions of Original Research, Review, Mini Review, Hypothesis, and Theory, focusing on the following aspects:
• The diagnostic and prognostic value of EVs in patients with gastrointestinal cancer;
• EVs in the clinical treatment of patients with gastrointestinal cancer;
• Multi-omics analysis of EVs in patients with gastrointestinal cancer, including proteomics, metabolomics, transcriptomics, etc;
• New techniques on isolation, purification and application of EVs;
• The role of EVs in regulating the immune microenvironment in patients with gastrointestinal cancer;
• The mechanism of extracellular vesicles regulating gastrointestinal tumor metastasis and drug resistance.