title: Biomarkers for immune therapy in colorectal cancer: mismatch-repair deficiency and others.
abstract: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a heterogeneous disease for which the treatment backbone has primarily been cytotoxic chemotherapy. With better understanding of the involved molecular mechanisms, it is now known that there are a number of epigenetic and genetic events, which are involved in CRC pathogenesis. Specific biomarkers have been identified which can be used to determine the clinical outcome of patients beyond tumor staging and predict for treatment efficacy. Molecular testing is now routinely performed to select for patients that will benefit the most from targeted agents and immunotherapy. In addition toKRAS, NRAS, andBRAFmutation (MT), analysis of DNA mismatch repair (MMR) status, tumor infiltrating lymphocytes, and checkpoint protein expression may be helpful to determine whether patients are eligible for certain therapies. The focus of this article is to discuss present and upcoming biomarkers for immunotherapy in CRC.
authors.affiliation: Division of Medical Oncology, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Richard Solove Research Institute and James Cancer Hospital, Columbus, Ohio, USA.
authors.forename: Manojkumar
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bupathi
authors.affiliation: Division of Medical Oncology, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Richard Solove Research Institute and James Cancer Hospital, Columbus, Ohio, USA.
authors.forename: Christina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wu
keywords: DNA mismatch; Immunotherapy; checkpoint proteins; microsatellite instability (MSI); neoantigen; programmed death protein-1 (PD-1); programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1); tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL)