Tiny air bubbles once known as cell debris may play key role in understanding and treating disease

Scientists have long puzzled over the key way cells communicate with each other, but researchers at Rutgers University have used a simple roundworm to solve the mystery

The research, published in the journal Current Biology, may help develop treatments for Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases

One way cells share good and bad news with each other is through small vesicles called extracellular vesicles (evs)

"Despite the deep medical importance of EVs, the field lacks a fundamental understanding of the form of EVs, what is packed in different types of cargo EVs come from the same or different cell types and how different cargoes affect the range and targeting of EVs.

EVs are present in human body fluids including urine and blood, and since healthy and diseased cells pack different EV cargoes, they can be used in liquid biopsies as biomarkers of disease

The Rutgers team decided to use a simple laboratory animal—C.

Genetics professors Maureen Barr and Nikonorova developed a large-scale identification project that identified 2,888 candidates for electric vehicle freight

Given the importance of EVs in the human nervous system, Nikonorova focused on EVs produced by cilia

Nikonorova and Barr hypothesized that neurons package RNA-binding proteins and RNAs into EVs to drive communication between cells and between animals

"We have developed an innovative approach to tag, track and analyze EVs using genetically encoded, fluorescently labeled EV cargo, and perform large-scale segregation and protein analysis," Nikonorova said

Future work in the Barr lab will point to an understanding of EV-mediated RNA communication

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Isolation, profiling, and tracking of extracellular vesicle cargo in Caenorhabditis elegans