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Happel et al. J Cancer Metastasis Treat 2020;6:32 Journal of Cancer
DOI: 10.20517/2394-4722.2020.71 Metastasis and Treatment

Review Open Access

Extracellular RNAs as potential biomarkers for
cancer

Christine Happel , Aniruddha Ganguly , Danilo A. Tagle 1
2
1
1 National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
2 Cancer Diagnosis Program, Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis, National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of
Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.

Correspondence to: Dr. Danilo A. Tagle, Office of the Director, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National
Institutes of Health, 6701 Democracy Blvd., Bethesda, MD 20892, USA. E-mail: danilo.tagle@nih.gov
How to cite this article: Happel C, Ganguly A, Tagle DA. Extracellular RNAs as potential biomarkers for cancer. J Cancer
Metastasis Treat 2020;6:32. http://dx.doi.org/10.20517/2394-4722.2020.71
Received: 7 Jul 2020 Accepted: 5 Aug 2020 Published: 17 Sep 2020

Academic Editor: Wei Zhang Copy Editor: Cai-Hong Wang Production Editor: Jing Yu

Abstract
The discovery that all cells secrete extracellular vesicles (EVs) to shuttle proteins and nucleic acids to recipient
cells suggested they play an important role in intercellular communication. EVs are widely distributed in many
body fluids, including blood, cerebrospinal fluid, urine and saliva. Exosomes are nano-sized EVs of endosomal
origin that regulate many pathophysiological processes including immune responses, inflammation, tumour
growth, and infection. Healthy individuals release exosomes with a cargo of different RNA, DNA, and protein
contents into the circulation, which can be measured non-invasively as biomarkers of healthy and diseased
states. Cancer-derived exosomes carry a unique set of DNA, RNA, protein and lipid reflecting the stage of tumour
progression, and may serve as diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for various cancers. However, many gaps in
knowledge and technical challenges in EVs and extracellular RNA (exRNA) biology, such as mechanisms of EV
biogenesis and uptake, exRNA cargo selection, and exRNA detection remain. The NIH Common Fund-supported
exRNA Communication Consortium was launched in 2013 to address major scientific challenges in this field. This
review focuses on scientific highlights in biomarker discovery of exosome-based exRNA in cancer and its possible
clinical application as cancer biomarkers.

Keywords: Extracellular vesicles, exosomes, extracellular RNA, cancer, biomarker, liquid biopsy

© The Author(s) 2020. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use,
sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, for any purpose, even commercially, as long
as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license,
and indicate if changes were made.

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