Abstract 4032: Functional analysis of exosomes derived from human esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

Exosomes are small membrane vesicles (30-100 nm) released by many types of cells including cancer cells, and are thought to play an important role in cell-to-cell communications. Exosomes contain lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids such as mRNAs or microRNAs, they are tought to have relationship with tumor growth or metastasis. Our laboratory was previously reported the level of microRNA-1246, expressed mainly in tumor tissues of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC), was significantly high in exosomes extracted from the serum of ESCC patients. However, the exosome dynamics and transportation between cancer cells and the other cells are still unclear. In this study, we assessed the cell-to-cell communication via exosomes with fluorescent imaging and analyzed the effect of cancer cell derived exosome to tumor progression. In order to image and analyze the movement of cancer cell-derived exosomes, green fluorescent protein (GFP)-tagged CD63, which is a general marker of exosomes, was expressed in human esophageal squamous cancer cell line TE2. Exosomes were extracted from supernatant with ultracentrifuge method. Extracted GFP-tagged exosomes were added to the other cells to obtain the images of transportation. The effects of exosomes to tumor progression were also assessed with cell proliferation assay, invasion oassay, and migration assay. Our data indicates that cancer cell derived exosomes affect tumor progression. Citation Format: Yasunori Matsumoto, Masayuki Kano, Yasunori Akutsu, Takanori Nishimori, Naoyuki Hanari, Isamu Hoshino, Kentaro Murakami, Takeshi Toyozumi, Hiroshi Suito, Masahiko Takahashi, Nobufumi Sekino, Yoshihiro Nabeya, Hisahiro Matsubara. Functional analysis of exosomes derived from human esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 4032. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-4032