Biomarkers Discovery for Colorectal Cancer: A Review on Tumor Endothelial Markers as Perspective Candidates

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer in the world. The early detection of CRC, during the promotion/progression stages, is an enormous challenge for a successful outcome and remains a fundamental problem in clinical approach. Despite the continuous advancement in diagnostic and therapeutic methods, there is a need for discovery of sensitive and specific, noninvasive biomarkers. Tumor endothelial markers (TEMs) are associated with tumor-specific angiogenesis and are potentially useful to discriminate between tumor and normal endothelium. The most promising TEMs for oncogenic signaling in CRC appeared to be the TEM1, TEM5, TEM7, and TEM8. Overexpression of TEMs especially TEM1, TEM7, and TEM8 in colorectal tumor tissue compared to healthy tissue suggests their role in tumor blood vessels formation. Thus TEMs appear to be perspective candidates for early detection, monitoring, and treatment of CRC patients. This review provides an update on recent data on tumor endothelial markers and their possible use as biomarkers for screening, diagnosis, and therapy of colorectal cancer patients.