Expression profiles for lymph node metastasis in I-III colorectal cancer

Lymph node metastasis(LNM) is the most common metastatic pathway of colorectal cancer (CRC), with a rate of 40.5% to 49.7%. Meanwhile, LNM also is one of the most important prognostic risk factor and often predicts a poor clinical outcome. Therefore, it is necessary to identify relevant genes or elucidate potential molecular mechanisms of LNM in order to develop effective prevention and treatment strategies. The aim of this study is to give an insight into the specific signatures and molecular mechanisms of lymph node metastasis in CRC. Overall design: Expression profiles for lymph node metastasis in I-III colorectal cancer patients was measured, including 4 LNM-positive cancer samples, 4 LNM-negative samples, and 2 adjacent normal samples. Furthermore, these 8 CRC samples contained 4 mismatch repair-deficient (dMMR) and 4 mismatch repair-proficient (pMMR) samples.