Recruitment of DNA to tumor-derived microvesicles.

The shedding of extracellular vesicles (EVs) represents an important but understudied means of cell-cell communication in cancer. Among the currently described classes of EVs, tumor-derived microvesicles (TMVs) comprise a class of vesicles released directly from the cell surface. TMVs contain abundant cargo, including functional proteins and miRNA, which can be transferred to and alter the behavior of recipient cells.

Profiling and promise of supermeres.

Extracellular vesicles and particles have important roles in physiology and disease. Advances in isolation and characterization technologies have enabled the identification of new particles. Supermeres are the newest addition to the rapidly expanding repertoire of the cell secretome, and provide exciting opportunities for clinical translation.

Breaking Bad: Extracellular Vesicles Provoke Tumorigenic Responses Under Oxygen Deprivation.

Intercellular communication is vital to tumor progression. In this issue of Developmental Cell, Bertolini et al. (2020) describe how small extracellular vesicles released from hypoxic mammary tumor cells facilitate intercellular communication, leading to alterations in mitochondrial dynamics and acquisition of invasive phenotypes in normal epithelial cells.

Extracellular Vesicles in the Tumor Microenvironment: Various Implications in Tumor Progression.

Extracellular vesicle (EV) shedding is a biologically conserved cellular process across virtually every cell type. In cancer, EVs shed from tumor and stromal cells to the tumor microenvironment play a major role in determining tumor fate, which to a large extent is dictated by the biologically active cargo contained in EVs. Current understanding of various cancer-associated EVs has enabled the outlining of mechanistic connections between cargo and tumor-promoting functions.

Chronic circadian misalignment results in reduced longevity and large-scale changes in gene expression in Drosophila.

Background: Circadian clocks are found in nearly all organisms, from bacteria to mammals, and ensure that behavioral and physiological processes occur at optimal times of day and in the correct temporal order. It is becoming increasingly clear that chronic circadian misalignment (CCM), such as occurs in shift workers or as a result of aberrant sleeping and eating schedules common to modern society, has profound metabolic and cognitive consequences, but the proximate mechanisms connecting CCM with reduced organismal health are unknown. Furthermore, it has been difficult to disentangle whether the health effects are directly induced by misalignment or are secondary to the alterations in sleep and activity levels that commonly occur with CCM.