Frizzled-10 Extracellular Vesicles Plasma Concentration Is Associated with Tumoral Progression in Patients with Colorectal and Gastric Cancer.

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are involved in intercellular communication during the carcinogenesis. Our attention has been focused on small EVs (sEVs) protein content in colorectal and gastric cancer (CRC and GC). Frizzled (FZD) proteins, a family of receptors comprised in the Wnt signaling pathway, play an important role in the carcinogenesis of CRC and GC. Here, the expression of a specific FZD protein, namely, FZD-10, was investigated in the sEVs extracted from plasma of patients affected by CRC and GC as involved in canonical and noncanonical Wnt signaling in cancer stem cells with a subsequent modification of cellular heterogeneity, omics reprogramming, and tumor plasticity. The expression of FZD-10 protein in the sEVs extracted from plasma of patients affected by CRC and GC and sEVs from plasma of healthy subjects was evaluated against the level of protein Hsp70, established as EVs specific markers along with CD63 and ALIX proteins. The FZD-10 extract from sEVs isolated from plasma of the controls and the CRC or GC subjects indicated that its expression in oncological patients was higher than in the control group, while, at the end of the treatment, it reached values comparable with the average level of controls. Furthermore, the level of FZD-10 in the whole plasma was found comparable with its level in the sEVs extract. The level of FZD-10 in the sEVs represents a potential reliable biomarker with a valuable prognostic function for the diagnosis of CRC and GC and for monitoring the treatment response.