Hannafon Bethany N, Ding Wei-Qun
Department of Pathology, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, OK 73104, USA.
Int J Mol Sci. 2013 Jul 9;14(7):14240-69. doi: 10.3390/ijms140714240.
The development of human cancers is a multistep process in which normal cells acquire characteristics that ultimately lead to their conversion into cancer cells. Many obstacles must be overcome for this process to occur; of these obstacles, is the ability to survive an inhospitable microenvironment. It is recognized that the intercommunication between tumor cells and their surrounding microenvironment is essential to overcoming this obstacle and for the tumor to progress, metastasize and establish itself at distant sites. Exosomes are membrane-derived vesicles that have recently been recognized as important mediators of intercellular communication, as they carry lipids, proteins, mRNAs and microRNAs that can be transferred to a recipient cell via fusion of the exosome with the target cell membrane. In the context of cancer cells, this process entails the transfer of cancer-promoting cellular contents to surrounding cells within the tumor microenvironment or into the circulation to act at distant sites, thereby enabling cancer progression. In this process, the transfer of exosomal microRNAs to a recipient cell where they can regulate target gene expression is of particular interest, both in understanding the basic biology of cancer progression and for the development of therapeutic approaches. This review discusses the exosome-mediated intercellular communication via microRNAs within the tumor microenvironment in human cancers, with a particular focus on breast cancer exosomes.
人类癌症的发展是一个多步骤过程，在此过程中正常细胞获得最终导致其转变为癌细胞的特征。要发生这个过程必须克服许多障碍；在这些障碍中，能够在恶劣的微环境中存活是其中之一。人们认识到肿瘤细胞与其周围微环境之间的相互交流对于克服这一障碍以及肿瘤进展、转移并在远处部位定植至关重要。外泌体是膜衍生的囊泡，最近被认为是细胞间通讯的重要介质，因为它们携带脂质、蛋白质、信使核糖核酸（mRNA）和微小核糖核酸（miRNA），这些物质可通过外泌体与靶细胞膜融合转移至受体细胞。在癌细胞的背景下，这个过程需要将促癌细胞内容物转移到肿瘤微环境中的周围细胞或进入循环系统以在远处发挥作用，从而促进癌症进展。在此过程中，外泌体微小核糖核酸转移到受体细胞并在其中调节靶基因表达这一点，在理解癌症进展的基础生物学以及开发治疗方法方面都特别受关注。本综述讨论了人类癌症肿瘤微环境中通过微小核糖核酸介导的外泌体细胞间通讯，尤其侧重于乳腺癌外泌体。
