Intercepting Cancer Communiques: Exosomes as Heralds of Malignancy

Exosomes are stable, lipid bilayer-enclosed vesicles capable of crossing biological barriers. They can carry a wide range of molecules required for intercellular communication. Once exosomes are released from the cell where they originated, they enter a recipient cell through various pathways such as fusion, receptor-mediated endocytosis, macropinocytosis, and phagocytosis.
Stahl et al. discovered exosomes in 1983, but the exosomes were initially considered waste products released from the...

Every normal cell or tissue is embedded in a complex local environment called stroma, consisting of different cell types, a basal membrane, and blood vessels. As normal cells mutate and develop into cancer cells, their local environment also changes to allow cancer progression. The tumor microenvironment (TME) consists of a complex cellular matrix of stromal cells and the developing tumor. The cross-talk between cancer cells and surrounding stromal cells is critical to disrupt normal tissue...

Metastasis is the spread of cancer cells from the original site to distant locations in the body. Cancer cells can spread via blood vessels (hematogenous) as well as lymph vessels in the body.
Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal Transition
The epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition or EMT is a developmental process commonly observed in wound healing, embryogenesis, and cancer metastasis. EMT is induced by transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) or receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) ligands, which further...

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are adult stem cells that can differentiate into most connective tissue cell types, except for hematopoietic cells, depending upon the source of MSCs. For example, bone-marrow-derived MSCs (BM-MSCs) can differentiate into osteocytes, hepatocytes, and pancreatic and neuronal cells. MSCs can be isolated from various sources such as bone marrow, placenta, adipose tissue, teeth, and Wharton’s jelly, a gelatinous substance in the umbilical cord. The ease of their...

Autocrine signaling is one of the many signaling mechanisms that function inside multicellular organisms to carry out intercellular communication. In this type of signaling mechanism, the same cell that secretes an extracellular signaling molecule also expresses the receptors to bind and respond to that signaling molecule.
Autocrine Signaling in Macrophages
Under normal physiological conditions, autocrine signaling is essential for maintaining homeostasis. This process is well characterized in...