食管癌是发展中国家常见的消化系统恶性肿瘤，早期多无症状，对我国居民的生命和健康造成极大威胁。寻找灵敏、特异的生物标志物以实现“三早”是食管癌防治工作的重点。本项目拟在前期研究的基础上，综合运用现场流行病学和分子流行病学设计思路，以circRNA为出发点，采用多重匹配和多阶段设计策略，分析circRNA-miRNA-DNA甲基化调控网络与食管癌的关联，构建食管癌特异性表观遗传表达谱模型并在大样本人群中验证，探讨表观遗传生物标志物在食管癌早期诊断与预后预测方面的应用价值，实现实验室研究向临床应用转化。由于circRNA特有的miRNA海绵效应，使其成为一种理想的药物靶标，因而该研究也具有潜在的肿瘤治疗应用前景。相信本项目的实施，将有助于加深对食管癌发病机制的认识，对于食管癌的精准预防和个体化治疗具有重要意义。

Esophageal cancer is a common digestive tract cancer in the developing countries. It seldom has obvious symptoms in the early stage, putting a great threat to the life and health of the Chinese population. Looking for sensitive and specific biomarkers to achieve "the secondary prevention strategy" is crucial in controlling esophageal cancer. Based on the previous findings, this study intends to apply both the field epidemiological study design and molecular epidemiological study design, by focusing on the circRNA-based epigenetic regulatory network in relation to the esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. The multiple-matching method and a multi-stage validation strategy will be adopted to construct the specific epigenetic patterns for the early diagnosis and prognosis prediction of esophageal cancer. We aim to achieve the translation of the research findings from the lab to the clinical practices. Due to the unique miRNA sponge effect, circRNA has become an ideal drug target. So this study also has the potential of tumor therapy applications. We believe that findings from this study can help deepen the understanding of the pathogenesis of esophageal cancer, and play an important role in precision prevention and controlling.