Cracking the Code for a New System of Cell-to-Cell Signaling

Thursday 23 December 2021, Amsterdam

Cracking the Code for a New System of Cell-to-Cell Signaling

exosomes


Joslin researchers discover how cells select small microRNAs that are secreted in small vesicles called exosomes and regulate metabolism in other cells at a distance.

The control of most body functions depends on the ability of cells to talk to each other. We have long known two ways of communication between cells: the nervous system and the secretion of hormones. In the past five years, scientists have discovered a third important way of communication-based on exosomes-tiny vesicles or vesicles containing protein and RNA molecules, which cells secrete into the circulation, where they can be used by others. Cells absorb to regulate metabolism.

Many laboratories focus on exosomes carrying microRNA. These are very short RNAs that can modulate the ability of other longer RNAs to make different cellular proteins and control cell functions. Therefore, microRNA affects many aspects of cell behavior in health and disease.

Scientists at Joslin Diabetes Center now have discovered how cells pick a collection of microRNAs for their exosomes, said C. Ronald Kahn, MD, a Joslin senior investigator, and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

"Our work offers a major insight into this new mechanism of cellular communication, because it breaks the code of why cells secrete some microRNAs and why they retain others," said Kahn, corresponding author on a Nature paper describing the work.

Kahn and his colleagues began studying how cells decide which microRNAs to put in their exosomes by setting up tissue cultures for five types of cells involved in metabolism (brown fat, white fat, skeletal muscle, liver, and "endothelial" cells that line blood vessels).

The biologists found that these different types of cells secrete quite different collections of microRNAs in their exosomes. "While some microRNAs are secreted by all cell types," Kahn said, “many microRNAs are secreted by only one or two of these cell types, even though they are made by other cell types as well."

"In some cases, microRNAs are 80 times more concentrated in the exosome than they are in the cell," said Kahn. "Other microRNAs are 10 or 20 times more concentrated in the cell than they are in the exosomes."

To understand how this might occur, the team looked for very short genetic sequence "motifs" in the microRNAs that might make the microRNA more or less likely to be secreted in an exosome. The researchers found that each of the five cell types employs different sequence motifs or codes for this process. In general, each cell type uses these sequence codes to determine which microRNAs it prefers to secrete and which it wants to retain.

To validate these findings, the Joslin researchers genetically modified the microRNA sequence motifs to see if those alterations could change a microRNA that normally would be retained to instead be secreted or vice versa. "We showed that these codes are not only present but can be manipulated to change the behavior of where the microRNA goes," said Kahn.

Taken together, these discoveries in exosome microRNA coding "really cut across every area of research," Kahn said.

Back in 2017, the Kahn lab showed that fat tissue is a major source of exosomes containing microRNAs and that these microRNAs circulating in the bloodstream can regulate how the liver handles glucose and other aspects of metabolism.

In their latest paper, Kahn and his co-workers showed that modifying the sequence codes in the microRNAs coming from fat could increase their ability to be secreted by the fat, taken up by the liver, and regulate liver metabolism.

Kahn's group now is examining whether the ability to manipulate microRNA codes in exosomes could improve gene therapies for diabetes and other metabolic diseases. "With these new findings, we could genetically manipulate a microRNA in the easily accessible subcutaneous fat to target improving metabolism in the liver, which is much more difficult for direct gene therapy," he said. "And if something went wrong, we could always take out the fat, whereas you can't take out the liver."

“Overall, what we did is fundamentally important way beyond the diabetes metabolism space, because this approach we've identified can be now applied to other cell types, including cells in the brain, the pancreas, the kidney or other tissues," Kahn said.

Source: JOSLIN DIABETES CENTER ( original url )

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