Omics technologies as powerful approaches to unravel colorectal cancer complexity and improve its management - Review article

Sep 23, 2026

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Colorectal cancer (CRC) remains among the deadliest and most prevalent cancers globally, requiring an innovative strategy across screening, diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis. An omics-centered approach can transform CRC management by resolving oncogenic alterations through genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and epigenomics. The molecular landscape supports biomarker discovery for early non-invasive detection, subtype classification, staging and survival prediction, therapeutic target identification, drug response forecasting, treatment efficacy tracking, residual disease monitoring, relapse detection, and resistance mechanism decoding, enabling molecular-based personalization of therapy.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryHealthcare

FormatPDF

Pages22

Reading Time55 min

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Abstract

Introduction

Molecules and Cells Review article Omics technologies as powerful approaches to unravel colorectal cancer complexity and improve its management Zaynab Fatfat 1 , Marwa Hussein2 , Maamoun Fatfat3 , and Hala Gali-Muhtasib 1 ,⁎ 1Department of Biology, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon, 2Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, Beirut Arab University, Beirut, Lebanon, 3Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon ⁎Corresponding [author. amro@aub.edu.lb](author. amro@aub.edu.lb)[ ](author. amro@aub.edu.lb)[https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mocell.2025.100200](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mocell.2025.100200) ABSTRACT Colorectal cancer (CRC) continues to rank among the deadliest and most prevalent cancers worldwide, necessitating an innovative and comprehensive approach that addresses this serious health challenge at various stages, from screening and diagnosis to treatment and prognosis. As CRC research progresses, the adoption of an omics-centered approach holds transformative potential to revolutionize the management of this disease. Advances in omics technologies encompassing genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and epigenomics allow to unravel the oncogenic alterations at these levels, elucidating the intricacies and the heterogeneous nature of CRC. By providing a comprehensive molecular landscape of CRC, omics technologies enable the discovery of potential biomarkers for early non-invasive detection of CRC, definition of CRC subtypes, prediction of its staging, prognosis, and overall survival of CRC patients. They also allow the identification of potential therapeutic targets, prediction of drug response, tracking treatment efficacy, detection of residual disease and cancer relapse, and deciphering the mechanisms of drug resistance. Moreover, they allow the distinction of non-metastatic CRC patients from metastatic ones as well as the stratification of metastatic risk. Importantly, omics technologies open up new opportunities to establish molecular-based criteria to guide the selection of effective treatment paving the way for the personalization of therapy for CRC patients. This review consolidates current knowledge on the omics-based preclinical discoveries in CRC research emphasizing the significant potential of these technologies to improve CRC screening, diagnosis, and prognosis and promote the implementation of personalized medicine to ultimately reduce CRC prevalence and mortality. © 2025 The Author(s) . Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of Korean Society for Molecular and Cellular Biology. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ([http://creativecommons.org/l](http://creativecommons.org/l)icenses/by-nc-nd/4 .0/) . Keywords: Biomarkers discovery, Colorectal cancer, Drug resistance, Omics technologies, Personalized treatment INTRODUCTION Being the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide, accounting for around 10% of all cancer cases, and the third most common cancer worldwide, colorectal cancer (CRC) is a significant global health concern. Globally, in 2020, it was estimated that CRC caused more than 930,000 deaths with more than 1.9 million new cases. The prevalence of CRC will rise to 3.2 million new cases and 1.6 million deaths annually by 2040 (an increase of 63% and 73%, respectively) (World Health Organization, 2023) . The rising trends in the prevalence and mortality rates of CRC could be attributed to the challenges encountered at the various stages of its management progressing from screening, diagnosis, and treatment to cancer prognosis. CRC is asymptomatic at its early stage, and most CRCs are diagnosed at symptomatic advanced stages, presenting a poorer prognosis (Thorsen et al. , 2019) . Different methods are currently used for CRC screening, and they include invasive modalities such as colonoscopy and flexible sigmoidoscopy and non-invasive ones such as guaiac fecal occ

FAQs

How can omics technologies improve colorectal cancer screening and early detection?

Omics technologies provide comprehensive molecular profiles that enable discovery of potential biomarkers for early, non-invasive detection of colorectal cancer.

Which omics layers are discussed for unraveling CRC complexity?

The review highlights genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and epigenomics to elucidate oncogenic alterations underlying CRC heterogeneity.

What types of clinical decisions can omics-based data support in CRC patients?

The article states that omics data can help define CRC subtypes, predict staging, prognosis and overall survival, identify therapeutic targets, predict drug response, track treatment efficacy, and detect residual disease or relapse.

Sep 23, 2026

Uploaded by Aurelia