Combining Cre-LoxP and single-cell sequencing technologies: insights into the extracellular vesicle cargo transfer

The recent study from the Pogge von Strandmann group published in Cellular and Molecular Immunology, by Alashkar Alhamwe et al., combined for the first time the Cre-LoxP recombination system with single-cell sequencing. The group monitored the tumor-derived extracellular vesicle (EV) uptake and the EV functions in the recipient non-malignant cells in a pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma mouse model. Recombination events and EV uptake, together with resulting gene expression changes in macrophages, neutrophils, and mast cells, were detected by single-cell sequencing technology of the tumor tissue. This new approach is highly specific, as it can identify single EV recipient cells without interfering with the EV biogenesis or the phenotype.