Exosome RNA Exosome RNA Research & Industry News
Exosomes are communication mediators participating in the intercellular exchange of proteins, metabolites and nucleic acids. Recent studies have demonstrated that exosomes are characterized by a unique proteomic composition that is distinct from the cellular one. The mechanisms responsible for determining the proteome content of the exosomes remain however obscure.
In the current study researchers from the University of Liège employ ultrastructural approach to validate a novel exosomal protein myoferlin. This is a multiple C2-domain containing protein, known for its conserved physiological function in endocytosis and vesicle fusion biology. Emerging studies demonstrate that myoferlin is frequently overexpressed in cancer, where it promotes cancer cell migration and invasion. Their data expand these findings by showing that myoferlin is a general component of cancer cell derived exosomes from different breast and pancreatic cancer cell lines. Using proteomic analysis, we demonstrate for the first time that myoferlin depletion in cancer cells leads to a significantly modulated exosomal protein load. Such myoferlin-depleted exosomes were also functionally deficient as shown by their reduced capacity to transfer nucleic acids to human endothelial cells (HUVEC). Beyond this, myoferlin-depleted cancer exosomes also had a significantly reduced ability to induce migration and proliferation of HUVEC. The present study highlights myoferlin as a new functional player in exosome biology, calling for novel strategies to target this emerging oncogene in human cancer.
Myoferlin-deficient exosomes are impaired to enter target cells
A-B. Immunofluorescence of HUVEC incubated with PKH67 labelled cancer-derived exosomes. Shown are representative images of three independent experiments. Quantification was conducted on 10 randomly selected fields, error bars indicate standard error of means. C. Relative levels of the murine miRNA miR-298, measured by qRT-PCR, in HUVEC incubated with cancer-derived exosomes pre-loaded with miR-298. Ubiquitously expressed RNU44 was used for normalization. Data are averages of three independent experiments; error bars indicate standard error of means. D. Confocal analysis of cancer-derived exosomes localization in HUVEC. CD31 was used for membrane staining while nuclei were labelled with DAPI. The absence of cell surface adsorption was excluded using the Pearson correlation analysis.
