Exosomal microRNAs as liquid biopsy biomarkers in prostate cancer

Abstract

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most commonly diagnosed solid-organ cancer in males. The PSA testing may cause overdiagnosis and overtreatment for PCa patients. There is an urgent need for new biomarkers with greater discriminative precision for diagnosis and risk-stratification, to select for prostate biopsy and treatment of PCa. Liquid biopsy is a promising field with the potential to provide comprehensive information on the genetic landscape at diagnosis and to track genomic evolution over time in order to tailor the therapeutic choices at all stages of PCa. Exosomes, containing RNAs, DNAs and proteins, have been shown to be involved in tumour progression and a rich potential source of tumour biomarkers, especially for profiling analysis of their miRNAs content. In this review, we summarise the exosomal miRNAs in PCa diagnosis, prognosis and management, and further discuss their possible technical challenges associated with isolating PCa-specific exosomes.

Keywords: Biomarkers; Diagnosis; Exosomes; Liquid biopsy; MicroRNAs; Prostate cancer.