Llorente and coworkers publish detailed lipidomic analyses of exosomes released from prostate cancer cells
Project group leader Alicia Llorente, working in the group of Kirsten Sandvig, has recently published the lipid composition of a prostate cancer cell line and of the exosomes released from these cells.
The work was performed in collaboration with two Finnish research groups and published in Biochim. Biophys. Acta (Mol. Cell Biol. Lip.; journal impact factor 5.3). The study, based on the quantification of 280 molecular lipid species, provides the most extensive lipid analysis of cells and their released exosomes to date.
The data show a remarkable enrichment of lipid classes in exosomes. Lipid species, even of classes not enriched in exosomes, were selectively included in exosomes. Importantly, several of the lipid species enriched in exosomes could potentially be used as cancer biomarkers. In particular, glycosphingolipids are especially interesting since they can be quantified using antibodies, and there are more glycosphingolipids than proteins available on the outer leaflet of exosomes. The very detailed quantitative data obtained made the authors to propose that long-chain sphingolipids in the outer membrane leaflet in the presence of cholesterol are interacting with one single phosphatidylserine species (PS 18:0/18:1) in the inner leaflet. Thus, the data indicate that a handshaking between the inner and outer membrane leaflet may be important for the stability of these membrane structures.
Links:
Molecular Lipidomics of Exosomes Released by PC-3 Prostate Cancer Cells.
Llorente A, Skotland T, Sylvänne T, Kauhanen D, Rog T, Orłowski A, Vattulainen I, Ekroos K, Sandvig K.
Biochim Biophys Acta. 2013 Apr 23.
Alicia Llorente's project group :
Membrane Transport in Prostate Cancer Cells: Release of Microvesicles
Alicia Llorente's publications
Kirsten Sandvig's group - Intracellular transport
Department of Biochemistry
Centre for Cancer Biomedicine