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Updated: Aug 9, 2025

An Enrichment Method for Small Extracellular Vesicles Derived from Liver Cancer Tissue
Published on: February 3, 2023
Extracellular Vesicles Released from Cancer Cells Promote Tumorigenesis by Inducing Epithelial to Mesenchymal
Vamshikrishna Malyla1,2, Keshav Raj Paudel2, Gabriele De Rubis1
1Discipline of Pharmacy, Graduate School of Health, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2007, Australia.
Abstract:
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths globally, in part due to a lack of early diagnostic tools and effective pharmacological interventions. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are lipid-based membrane-bound particles released from all living cells in both physiological and pathological states. To understand the effects of lung-cancer-derived EVs on healthy cells, we isolated and characterized EVs derived from A549 lung adenocarcinoma cells and transferred them to healthy human bronchial epithelial cells (16HBe14o). We found that A549-derived EVs carry oncogenic proteins involved in the pathway of epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) that are regulated by β-catenin. The exposure of 16HBe14o cells to A549-derived EVs resulted in a significant increase in cell proliferation, migration, and invasion via upregulating EMT markers such as E-Cadherin, Snail, and Vimentin and cell adhesion molecules such as CEACAM-5, ICAM-1, and VCAM-1, with concomitant downregulation of EpCAM. Our study suggests a role for cancer-cell-derived EVs to induce tumorigenesis in adjacent healthy cells by promoting EMT via β-catenin signaling.
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