Improving extracellular vesicles visualization: From static to motion

• Published in: Scientific reports 2020-04, Vol.10 (1), p.6494-6494, Article 6494
• Main Authors: Reclusa, Pablo, Verstraelen, Peter, Taverna, Simona, Gunasekaran, Muthukumar, Pucci, Marzia, Pintelon, Isabel, Claes, Nathalie, de Miguel-Pérez, Diego, Alessandro, Riccardo, Bals, Sara, Kaushal, Sunjay, Rolfo, Christian
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 14/19; 14/28; 14/34; 631/1647/2230; 631/1647/245/2225; 631/80/642/2162; 631/92/577; 631/92/610; Antineoplastic Agents - administration & dosage; Cancer; Cell Line, Tumor; Disease Progression; Drug Carriers; Drug delivery; Epithelial Cells - cytology; Epithelial Cells - metabolism; Extracellular vesicles; Extracellular Vesicles - metabolism; Extracellular Vesicles - ultrastructure; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Integrins; Internalization; Intravital Microscopy; Lung cancer; Metastases; Microscopy, Confocal; Microscopy, Electron, Scanning; multidisciplinary; Neoplasms - drug therapy; Neoplasms - pathology; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Time-Lapse Imaging; Ultracentrifugation - methods
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-62920-0

In the last decade, extracellular vesicles (EVs) have become a hot topic. The findings on EVs content and effects have made them a major field of interest in cancer research. EVs, are able to be internalized through integrins expressed in parental cells, in a tissue specific manner, as a key step of cancer progression and pre-metastatic niche formation. However, this specificity might lead to new opportunities in cancer treatment by using EVs as devices for drug delivery. For future applications of EVs in cancer, improved protocols and methods for EVs isolation and visualization are required. Our group has put efforts on developing a protocol able to track the EVs for in vivo internalization analysis. We showed, for the first time, the videos of labeled EVs uptake by living lung cancer cells.