Li Fei, Song Lin, He Yue, Chen Peiling, Wang Jiasheng, Zeng Maozhen, Li Chunmou, Chen Junru, Chen Haisheng, Guo Qiqi, Fan Jiaxi, Huang Xuan, Wang Qi, Zhang Qing
State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
School of Life Sciences, Huizhou University, Huizhou, China.
Oncogene. 2025 Apr 13. doi: 10.1038/s41388-025-03389-x.
Distant metastasis is one of the main reasons for treatment failure in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients. Tumour angiogenesis is a key basis for the distant metastasis of NPC. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying the mutual interaction between endothelial and NPC cells in tumour angiogenesis and NPC metastasis are still unclear. Here, we found that extracellular vesicles (EVs) mediate intercellular communication between endothelial cells and NPC cells, thereby promoting NPC cell migration, invasion, colony formation, and angiogenesis. Further experiments indicated that EV-mediated information exchange between endothelial cells and NPC cells upregulated the expression of the vascular endothelial growth factor receptor FLT1 in both types of cells. Mechanistically, FLT1-enriched EVs promoted NPC metastasis through the PI3K/AKT pathway and increased tumour angiogenesis, tumour growth, and distant lung and liver metastasis of NPC in xenografted mice. This effect was achieved through the delivery and upregulation of FLT1 in both endothelial and NPC cells. Thus, our findings reveal that FLT1-enriched EVs induce a positive feedback loop between NPC cells and endothelial cells to promote tumour angiogenesis and tumour metastasis. These results increase our understanding of the intricate interplay between tumour angiogenesis and distant metastasis and have major implications for the diagnosis and management of NPC patients with increased levels of FLT1-enriched EVs.
远处转移是鼻咽癌(NPC)患者治疗失败的主要原因之一。肿瘤血管生成是NPC远处转移的关键基础。然而,肿瘤血管生成和NPC转移过程中内皮细胞与NPC细胞相互作用的分子机制仍不清楚。在此,我们发现细胞外囊泡(EVs)介导内皮细胞与NPC细胞之间的细胞间通讯,从而促进NPC细胞迁移、侵袭、集落形成和血管生成。进一步实验表明,EV介导的内皮细胞与NPC细胞之间的信息交换上调了两种细胞中血管内皮生长因子受体FLT1的表达。机制上,富含FLT1的EVs通过PI3K/AKT途径促进NPC转移,并增加异种移植小鼠中NPC的肿瘤血管生成、肿瘤生长以及远处肺和肝转移。这种效应是通过在内皮细胞和NPC细胞中递送和上调FLT1来实现的。因此,我们的研究结果表明,富含FLT1的EVs在NPC细胞和内皮细胞之间诱导正反馈回路,以促进肿瘤血管生成和肿瘤转移。这些结果加深了我们对肿瘤血管生成与远处转移之间复杂相互作用的理解,对诊断和管理富含FLT1的EVs水平升高的NPC患者具有重要意义。