- Flora, Kailey;
- Ishihara, Moe;
- Zhang, Zhicheng;
- Bowen, Elizabeth S;
- Wu, Aimee;
- Ayoub, Tala;
- Huang, Julian;
- Cano-Ruiz, Celine;
- Jackson, Maia;
- Reghu, Kaveeya;
- Ayoub, Yasmeen;
- Zhu, Yazhen;
- Tseng, Hsian-Rong;
- Zhou, Z Hong;
- Hu, Junhui;
- Wu, Lily
Exosomes are extracellular vesicles that modulate essential physiological and pathological signals. Communication between cancer cells that express the von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) tumor suppressor gene and those that do not is instrumental to distant metastasis in renal cell carcinoma (RCC). In a novel metastasis model, VHL(-) cancer cells are the metastatic driver, while VHL(+) cells receive metastatic signals from VHL(-) cells and undergo aggressive transformation. This study investigates whether exosomes could be mediating metastatic crosstalk. Exosomes isolated from paired VHL(+) and VHL(-) cancer cell lines were assessed for physical, biochemical, and biological characteristics. Compared to the VHL(+) cells, VHL(-) cells produce significantly more exosomes that augment epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and migration of VHL(+) cells. Using a Cre-loxP exosome reporter system, the fluorescent color conversion and migration were correlated with dose-dependent delivery of VHL(-) exosomes. VHL(-) exosomes even induced a complete cascade of distant metastasis when added to VHL(+) tumor xenografts in a duck chorioallantoic membrane (dCAM) model, while VHL(+) exosomes did not. Therefore, this study supports that exosomes from VHL(-) cells could mediate critical cell-to-cell crosstalk to promote metastasis in RCC.