How the Internet of cells has biologists buzzing

Mapping of TNTs using Correlative Cryo-Electron Microscopy Reveals a Novel Structure

“…Given that vesicles and larger organelles such as lysosomes and mitochondria are transferred between cells connected by TNTs, it is conceivable that TNTs are structures open on both ends connecting the cytoplasm of two neighboring cells. This notion, however, is still controversial as it has not been sufficiently supported by prior ultra structural data 1,12,15 . Cryo-ET, was not suitable to address this question as connections between TNTs and cell bodies, were too thick (> 500nm in thickness) to be investigated by TEM ( Supplementary Fig.…”

“…Although these in vitro and in vivo studies have been informative, the structural complexity of TNTs remains largely unknown. As a result, TNTs have been regarded with skepticism by one part of the scientific community 5,12 . Two major issues that remain to be clarified are whether these protrusions are different from other previously studied cellular processes such as filopodia 13 and whether their function in allowing the exchange of cargos between distant cells is due to direct communication between the cytoplasm of distant cells or to a classic exo-endocytosis process or a trogocytosis event 14 .…”

Characteristics and roles of extracellular vesicles released by epidermal keratinocytes

“…Captured and stored in pericellular and interstitial spaces, EVs have a demonstrated capacity to preserve bioactive cargoes packaged within lipid‐enclosed vesicles, transporting and delivering these cargoes to other cells. These include neighbouring cells, tissue resident and transient immune cells, tissue stem cells and cells migrating from adjacent tissues in healing responses to injury . While not intended to substitute for classical forms of intercellular communication (e.g.…”

“…These include neighbouring cells, tissue resident and transient immune cells, tissue stem cells and cells migrating from adjacent tissues in healing responses to injury. 5,55 While not intended to substitute for classical forms of intercellular communication (e.g. hormones, chemokines, cytokines, mitogens), EVs provide local context, potentially modifying the physiology and functional activities of cells in the immediate locale.…”

Tunneling nanotubes contribute to the stroma-mediated imatinib resistance of leukemic cells

“…Cellular vesicles (Rustom et al, 2004;Onfelt et al, 2006), organelles (Vallabhaneni et al, 2012;Yasuda et al, 2011;Abounit et al, 2016b;Ahmad et al, 2014), miRNAs , viral particles (Sowinski et al, Nat Cell Biol 2008) and proteins (Schiller et al, 2013;Costanzo et al, 2013) can be actively transported directly from cell to cell, travelling along the actin or microtubule backbone of TNTs. Soon after their discovery, TNTs were recognized as a novel mode of intercellular communication Ariazi et al, 2017;Baker, 2017;Nawaz & Fatima, 2017). They have been found in a plethora of cell types to date, including immune cells (Önfelt et al, 2004;Onfelt et al, 2006), neurons (Gousset et al, 2009), cardiomyocytes (Figeac et al, 2014), endothelial cells (Liu et al, 2014;Yasuda et al, 2010), mesenchymal stromal cells (Pasquier et al, 2013), and cancer cells (Lou et al, 2012b;Thayanithy et al, 2014;Pasquier et al, 2012).…”