ECM stiffness-regulated exosomal thrombospondin-1 promotes tunneling nanotubes-based cellular networking in breast cancer cells.
Arch Biochem Biophys
; 742: 109624, 2023 07 01.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-37146866
ABSTRACT
Intercellular communication is pivotal in various stages of cancer progression. For smart and effective communication, cancer cells employ diverse modes of messaging that may be further fine-tuned by the microenvironmental changes. Extracellular matrix (ECM) stiffening due to excess deposition and crosslinking of collagen is one of the crucial tumor-microenvironmental changes that influence a plethora of cellular processes, including cell-cell communication. We herein studied the crosstalk between exosomes and tunneling nanotubes (TNT), the two distinct means of cell-cell communication under varying ECM-stiffness conditions. We show that exosomes promote the formation of tunneling nanotubes in breast cancer cells, which results in cellular internet. Interestingly, exosomes drastically increased the fraction of cells connected by TNT; however, they elicited no effect on the number of TNTs per pair of connected cells or the length of TNT. The observed pro-TNT effects of exosomes were found to be ECM-stiffness dependent. ECM-stiffness tuned exosomes were found to promote TNT formation predominantly via the 'cell dislodgment model'. At the molecular level, exosomal thrombospondin-1 was identified as a critical pro-TNT factor. These findings underline the influence of ECM stiffening on two diverse modes of cell communication and their interdependence, which may have significant implications in cancer biomedical research.
Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Neoplasias da Mama
/
Nanotubos
Tipo de estudo:
Prognostic_studies
Limite:
Female
/
Humans
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Arch Biochem Biophys
Ano de publicação:
2023
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Índia