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REVIEW article

Front. Cell Dev. Biol.
Sec. Membrane Traffic and Organelle Dynamics
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fcell.2024.1451988
This article is part of the Research Topic Molecular Mechanism of Polarized Transport in Cell Polarity View all 3 articles

Two roads diverged in a cell: Insights from differential exosome regulation in polarized cells

Provisionally accepted
Tadayuki Komori Tadayuki Komori Mitsunori Fukuda Mitsunori Fukuda *
  • Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Exosomes are extracellular vesicles involved in intercellular signaling, carrying various cargo from microRNAs to metabolites and proteins. They are released by practically all cells and are highly heterogenous due to their origin and content. Several groups of exosomes are known to be involved in various pathological conditions including autoimmune, neurodegenerative, and infectious diseases as well as cancer, and therefore a substantial understanding of their biogenesis and release is crucial. Polarized cells display an array of specific functions originated from differentiated membrane trafficking systems and could lead to hints in untangling the complex process of exosomes. Indeed, recent advances have successfully revealed specific regulation pathways for releasing different subsets of exosomes from different sides of polarized epithelial cells, underscoring the importance of polarized cells in the field. Here we review current evidence on exosome biogenesis and release, especially in polarized cells, highlight the challenges that need to be combatted, and discuss potential applications related to exosomes of polarized-cell origin.

    Keywords: ESCRT, exosome, Extracellular vesicle, heterogeneity, Multivesicular body (MVB), Polarized epithelial cell, Rab small GTPase, SNARE

    Received: 20 Jun 2024; Accepted: 23 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Komori and Fukuda. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Mitsunori Fukuda, Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.