Poster Presentation 27th Lorne Cancer Conference 2015

Metastatic colon cancer cell derived exosomes mediate stromal fibroblast invasion (#333)

Alin Rai 1 , David Greening 1
  1. La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Cancer associated fibroblasts are important mediators of tumour progression and contribute towards metastasis by leading invasion at the desmoplastic fronts. Here we investigate the role of exosomes derived from metastatic colon cancer (CRC) cells in promoting invasion of fibroblasts. Exosomes are endosomally-derived 50-150 nm sized vesicles that are secreted by a variety of cells into the extracellular space and are important during tumour progression. Stable expression of GFP fusion protein in CRC cells allowed reliable labelling of exosomes which were found to be secreted into the tumour microenvironment of the tumour tissue in vivo and actively internalized by fibroblast in vitro. A salient finding was that the intercellular transfer of oncoprotein by CRC exosomes to the fibroblasts results in invasion of non-invasive fibroblast through the extracellular matrix. These findings highlight the role of cancer exosomes in intercellular oncoprotein transfer in promoting stromal fibroblast invasion important during metastatic progression.