Cargo transfer hypothesis on extracellular vesicles

Intracellular trafficking and cargo release mechanisms of extracellular vesicles (EVs) are still largely unknown. We have developed experimental tools to study the efficiency of cargo release and membrane fusion of EVs inside recipient cells. These tools enable the quantitative assessment of the intracellular cargo delivery process of EVs, and even real-time imaging of cargo delivery in living cells (see pictures, purple dots are the cytoplasmically delivered EV cargo, with a little help from virus-derived fusion protein VSV-G).

Plasmids required for these tools are available through Addgene.

Reference

1. M. Somiya, “Where does the cargo go?: Solutions to provide experimental support for the ‘extracellular vesicle cargo transfer hypothesis,’” Journal of Cell Communication and Signaling, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 135–146, Jun. 2020, doi: 10.1007/s12079-020-00552-9.
2. M. Somiya and S. Kuroda, “Real-Time Luminescence Assay for Cytoplasmic Cargo Delivery of Extracellular Vesicles,” Anal. Chem., vol. 93, no. 13, pp. 5612–5620, Apr. 2021, doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.1c00339.
3. M. Somiya and S. Kuroda, “Reporter gene assay for membrane fusion of extracellular vesicles,” J. Extracel. Vesicle, e12171, Nov. 2021, doi: 10.1002/jev2.12171.
4. M. Somiya and S. Kuroda, “Verification of extracellular vesicle-mediated functional mRNA delivery via RNA editing", bioRxiv, Jan. 2022, doi: 10.1101/2022.01.25.477620.