Eureka! Institutional Repository

Colorectar cancer (cc) is a serious type of cancer characterized by hight mortality, which is due to the distant metastases created. Globally, more than 1,000,000 people per year present cc, with the 25% of them having a relevant family history, while the rest of the cases are due to the interaction of specific genes with external factors. The course of its development is limited to 3 mechanisms (CIMP, MSI, CIN), each of them working differently from the other two. In CIMP, hypermethylation of multiple CpG islands is observed in the promoters of certain genes, while submethylation is observed in the rest of the genome. In the MCI mechanism, the main characteristic is microsatellite instability, which means errors in DNA microsatellites due to damage to the DNA repair mechanism. In CIV we have losses of whole chromosomes or parts of them (chromosomal instability). The effects of these 3 mechanisms are severe carcinogenesis and especially cc.The most important genes whose mutations lead to the initiation of the mechanisms above are: KRAS, APC, MUTYH, TP53, PIC3CA and BRAF. Each of these genes encode important proteins for the cell function. Mutations in these genes lead to partial of total loss of the function of the respective protein and depending on the role of protein, the result is the initiation of one or moreof the mechanisms of carcinogenesis above. As for the cure of cc, surgical tumor resection and chemotherapy are widely used, while recent efforts in the last years have been made for the use of nanomedicine in order to overcome any side effects or chemotherapies.