Tumour microvesicles contain retrotransposon elements and amplified oncogene sequences

By L. Balaj, Ryan T Lessard, Lixin Dai, Yoon-Jae Cho, S. Pomeroy, X. Breakefield, J. Skog. Nature Communications, 2011

1,115 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Tumour cells release an abundance of microvesicles containing a selected set of proteins and RNAs. Here, we show that tumour microvesicles also carry DNA, which reflects the genetic status of the tumour, including amplification of the oncogene c-Myc. We also find amplified c-Myc in serum microvesicles from tumour-bearing mice. Further, we find remarkably high levels of retrotransposon RNA transcripts, especially for some human endogenous retroviruses, such as LINE-1 and Alu retrotransposon elements, in tumour microvesicles and these transposable elements could be transferred to normal cells. These findings expand the nucleic acid content of tumour microvesicles to include: elevated levels of specific coding and non-coding RNA and DNA, mutated and amplified oncogene sequences and transposable elements. Thus, tumour microvesicles contain a repertoire of genetic information available for horizontal gene transfer and potential use as blood biomarkers for cancer.

Subfields: Molecular Biology, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/283ef00137b9c7ba4cafe9de3e80c63bc5637aee

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Citations in the corpus

Biogenesis of extracellular vesicles (EV): exosomes, microvesicles, retrovirus-like vesicles, and apoptotic bodies (2013, positive): “detected in EVs isolated from glioblastoma primary cell lines [13] and the plasma of lymphoma patients [91].”
Liquid biopsy: a step closer to transform diagnosis, prognosis and future of cancer treatments (2022, background): “Since tumors have been shown to shed EVs profusely, their numbers in the plasma of patients with tumors reach extraordinary levels [134].”
Hypoxic enhancement of exosome release by breast cancer cells (2012, result): “NTA of the exosome fractions using the Nanosight microscope revealed the presence of nanoparticles with a modal size of 80 nm and 84 nm for the ultracentrifugation and Exoquick samples respectively (Figure 1C), similar to previous reports using this technology [33-36].”
Biological properties of extracellular vesicles and their physiological functions (2015, neutral): “including amplification of the oncogene c-Myc (222).”
Introduction to Extracellular Vesicles: Biogenesis, RNA Cargo Selection, Content, Release, and Uptake (2016, positive): “In a small number of cases, DNA has been found, including genomic and mitochondrial DNA (Guescini et al. 2010; Balaj et al. 2011; Waldenström et al. 2012).”