Trends in Cancer
OpinionDecoding the Biology of Exosomes in Metastasis
Section snippets
Cancer Exosomes
A large body of evidence has shown that virtually all organisms, despite their complexity and diversity, secrete EVs. This secretion appears to be a conserved mechanism across all three domains of life: Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukarya [1]. EVs have been found in all human body fluids tested to date, including urine, saliva, cerebrospinal fluid, milk, blood, and ascites [2]. Since EVs are easily accessible and the content reflects the biological context of their cell of origin, they are an
Tumor Growth and Local Invasion
If a tumor is considered a foreign entity growing in a body, this entity can be understood as trying to influence the host tissues to survive and prosper; the metastatic cascade is a clear reflection of this. To colonize other organs, cancer cells adopt various strategies to survive and grow at a distance on leaving the primary tumor [14]. The invasion of cancer cells is one of the early steps in the metastatic cascade. Cancer exosomes contribute directly to this event by remodeling the
Concluding Remarks
The current state of the art focuses predominantly on the identification of exosomal functions throughout the various stages of tumor development. Based on the current observations, little doubt remains on the important role played by these EVs in cancer. Nevertheless, the function of exosomes from the metastasis at the metastatic site remains largely unexplored (see Outstanding Questions). Importantly, most of the evidence gathered to date was obtained from in vitro experiments or in vivo
Acknowledgments
The laboratory is supported by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through COMPETE 2020 – Operacional Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalization (POCI), Portugal 2020, and by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT)/Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação in the framework of the project ‘Institute for Research and Innovation in Health Sciences’ POCI-01-0145-FEDER-032189; by Norte Portugal Regional Programme (NORTE 2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership
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These authors contributed equally to this work.