Targeted remodeling of breast cancer and immune cell homing niches by exosomal integrins.

Exosomes represent an important subset of extracellular vesicles involved in inter-cellular communications in health and diseases. Exosomes secreted from cancer and immune cells travel to the specific tissues containing homing niches. The exosomes reaching the niches dynamically modify the gene expression and molecular architectures of the homing niche micro-environments. Cell adhesion molecule integrins regulate the tissue-specific homing patterns of not only cancer and immune cells, but also of the exosomes secreted from those cells. The exosome-mediated remodeling of the homing niches would affect immune lymphocyte migration and host defense, as well as cancer metastasis, thereby representing a potential therapeutic target.