Emerging Role of Extracellular Vesicles in Prostate Cancer
Abstract Prostate cancer (PCa) is the second most common cancer amongst men in the United States. While the use of PSA has improved the ability to screen and ultimately diagnose PCa, there still remains false positives due to non-cancerous conditions in the prostate gland itself and other prognostic biomarkers for PCa are needed. Contents within extracellular vesicles (EVs) have emerged as promising biomarkers that can give valuable information about disease state, and have the additional benefit of being acquired through non-invasive liquid biopsies. Meaningful communication between cancer cells and the microenvironment are carried by EVs, which impact important cellular processes in prostate cancer such as metastasis, immune regulation, and drug resistance.