Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 11, 2025

Exosomal miRNA Analysis in Non-small Cell Lung Cancer NSCLC Patients' Plasma Through qPCR: A Feasible Liquid Biopsy Tool
Published on: May 27, 2016
Exosomal circular RNAs: A chief culprit in cancer chemotherapy resistance
Xu Guo1, Congying Gao2, Dong-Hua Yang3
1Department of Neurosurgery, Cancer Hospital of Dalian University of Technology,Cancer Hospital of China Medical University, Liaoning Cancer Hospital & Institute, Shenyang, Liaoning Province 110042, China.
Abstract:
Chemotherapy is one of the primary treatments for malignant tumors. However, the acquired drug resistance hinders clinical efficacy and leads to treatment failure in most patients. Exosomes are cell-derived vesicles with a diameter of 30-150 nm carrying and delivering substances such as DNAs, RNAs, lipids, and proteins for cellular communication in tumor development. Circular RNAs (circRNAs) present covalently closed-loop RNA structures, which regulate tumor cell proliferation, apoptosis, and metastasis by controlling different genes and signaling pathways. CircRNAs are abundant and stably expressed in exosomes. Recent studies have shown that they play critical roles in chemotherapy resistance in various cancers. In this review, we summarized the origin of exosomes and discussed the regulation mechanism of exosomal circRNAs in cancer drug resistance.
Related Concept Videos
Treatment Resistant Cancers
Cancer Stem Cells and Tumor Maintenance
Cancer stem cells are thought to originate from tissue-specific normal stem cells or progenitor cells. The normal stem cells usually reside in...
Targeted Cancer Therapies
There are several types of targeted therapies against...
lncRNA - Long Non-coding RNAs
MicroRNAs
Overview of Exosomes
Stahl et al. discovered exosomes in 1983, but the exosomes were initially considered waste products released from the...

