Disentangling the complexity of tumor-derived extracellular vesicles
Tim Beltraminelli,
Caleb R. Perez,
Michele De Palma
Affiliations
Tim Beltraminelli
Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC), School of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland; Swiss Cancer Center Léman (SCCL), Lausanne, Switzerland
Caleb R. Perez
Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC), School of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland; Swiss Cancer Center Léman (SCCL), Lausanne, Switzerland; Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Cambridge, MA, USA; Department of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA
Michele De Palma
Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC), School of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland; Swiss Cancer Center Léman (SCCL), Lausanne, Switzerland; Corresponding author
Summary: The tumor microenvironment encompasses an intertwined ensemble of both transformed cancer cells and non-transformed host cells, which together establish a signaling network that regulates tumor progression. By conveying both homo- and heterotypic cell-to-cell communication cues, tumor-derived extracellular vesicles (tEVs) modulate several cancer-associated processes, such as immunosuppression, angiogenesis, invasion, and metastasis. Herein we discuss how recent methodological advances in the isolation and characterization of tEVs may help to broaden our understanding of their functions in tumor biology and, potentially, establish their utility as cancer biomarkers.
